Nicole C. Nelson

Nicole C. Nelson

@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Science & Technology Studies | History of Sci/Tech/Med | Qualitative Metascience | Medical Humanities. Associate Prof at UW Madison. 🇨🇦 living in the 🇺🇸 married to a 🇩🇪.

2.7K followers903 following70 posts

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

Collective for Humanism, Arts, and Storytelling in Medicine
@chasmuwmad.bsky.social

Can medical humanities coursework build compassionate care skills? New research from our faculty says yes. A multimodal elective on suffering & social justice showed meaningful improvements across all outcomes measured. Read more in WMJ. #MedicalHumanities #MedEd wmjonline.org/125no1/babal/

wmjonline.orgBearing Witness to Suffering and Social Justice: A Novel Multimodal Medical Humanities Course That Cultivates Compassionate Health CareJessica C. Babal, MD; Liana Eskola, DO; Elizabeth A. Fleming, MD; Rory Bade, MD; Meinkeng Acha-Morfaw, MD; Jens Eickhoff, PhD; Nicole Nelson, PhD WMJ. 2026;125(1):170-173. Download full-text pdf. Down...
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

New bit of work out today... A programmatic piece calling for more research on what replication work looks like in different fields ⬇️

Cyrus Mody@ccmmody.bsky.social

new blog post at Journal of Trial & Error in series co-sponsored by @nanobubbles.bsky.social by Candida Sánchez Burmester, Maha Said, Martin Bush, myself & @nicolecnelson.bsky.social on "Field-Specific Barriers to Performing Replications" 1/x blog.trialanderror.org/cultures-of-...

blog.trialanderror.orgCultures of Trial and Error: Field-specific Barriers to Performing ReplicationsIn this piece, we call for more comparative research on field-specific replication dynamics.
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

#STS #HSTM #HPS folks who are studying AI in use in scientific contexts...please check out this call! You can apply to get feedback on your work in progress or get 💵 to provide feedback on others' work. I will be workshopping some of my own stuff on cloud labs. datasociety.net/announcement...

datasociety.netThe Craft of Science with AI: Evidence, Judgment, and PracticeWe invite researchers and practitioners to join us in examining how scientific reasoning and imagination are being reconfigured as AI systems become a part of the everyday practice of science. Learn m...
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

We're hiring in history of science at UW Madison! TT Assistant Professorship with a focus on water. Joint appointment between the History and Integrated Liberal Studies depts, and part of a university-wide hiring cluster on earth/sustainability science. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/profess... #STS #HSMT

jobs.wisc.eduProfessor of History - Madison, Wisconsin, United StatesCurrent Employees: If you are currently employed at any of the Universities of Wisconsin, log in to Workday to apply through the internal application process.Job Category:FacultyEmployment Type:Regula...
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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Calling the Trump EO "fool's gold" and the like may feel like a pithy way of maintaining a preserve of "genuine" open science advocacy, but this boundary making is exactly the kind of exclusionary practice that has galvanized dissident scientists and motivated them to keep showing up.

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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

*That* is what conservative advocacy for open science is about... enabling the production of "deregulatory science", as Becky Mansfield calls it, rather than enabling the exclusion of existing science. The end goal (deregulation) may be the same, but the mechanism is importantly different.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

The difference is important because access to data is increasing with or without the specific laws/policies that Republicans have championed. Adversarial reanalysis is likely to become more of a feature of our scientific/political landscape, and we don't have great tools to deal with it.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

For 30 some years, Republicans have recognized that they are under-gunned when it comes to regulatory science disputes because they don't have access to the large scale, longitudinal studies with which good science is made. And so they've been trying to pry open that can to get access to that data.

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

Society for Social Studies of Science, 4S
@4sonline.bsky.social

4S is scoping out the level interest in creating a mutual support network for scholars of all stages w/ HSS and SHOT for “Cultivating Community Among International Scholars in Uncertain Times.” Please fill in the following survey (takes <5 mins): forms.gle/FD63QKGjXNJk...

forms.gleCultivating Community Among International Scholars in Uncertain Times—4S / HSS / SHOT Mutual Support Network SurveyAt the recent meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies, the presidents of the Society for Social Studies of Science, History of Science Society, and Society for History of Technology began...

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

Brian Nosek
@briannosek.bsky.social

Call for collaborators! We are launching the Replicability Project: Health Behavior (RPHB) to replicate a sample of findings relevant to public health, epidemiology, health policy, and behavioral science. Teams receive funding for conducting replication studies. Details: www.cos.io/rphb

cos.ioReplicability Project: Health Behavior (RPHB)The Center for Open Science (COS) is launching the Replicability Project: Health Behavior (RPHB), which is a large-scale, multi-team effort to help support a transparent and trustworthy foundation in ...
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

The thing that I've always most enjoyed using social media for is posting photos of all my little projects, so in an effort to wean myself off of meta I'll start posting here. A 1:14 scale model of my sewing room, in progress!

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Don't have a team of potential editors already in mind, but would like to be part of the team that leads @estsjournal.bsky.social ? Send me an email! I am collecting up names and hold a Zoom call in a few weeks to introduce folks to each other and answer questions.

Nicole C. Nelson@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

The call is now officially out for a new editorial team for @estsjournal.bsky.social ! Please share widely, and email me to chat if you are interested in leading @4sweb.bsky.social's diamond OA journal. I am happy to help you put together your proposal and team! #STS 4sonline.org/news_manager...

4sonline.orgEditor(s), Open-Access Journal Engaging Science, Technology, and SocietySearchMobile Menu

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

jonathan w. y. gray
@jwyg.bsky.social

✨ #callforpapers ✨ - First STS India Network Conference in Delhi, 15-17 December 2025 - including tracks on histories of STS, digital STS, feminist STS and environmental STS: stsin.org/stsinc25/ #cfp #sts @ushar.bsky.social

stsin.orgThe First STS India Network ConferenceCo-shaping of Science, Technology and Society in India 15-17 December 2025 The National Capital Region of Delhi, India Call for Papers:The STS India Conference seeks to bring together scholars, edu…

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

The HPS Podcast
@hpspodcast.bsky.social

“You can have great understandings of how people are supposed to make knowledge that do not work in practice" S4 Ep8 @nicolecnelson.bsky.social talks to @cjcontarino.bsky.social about Ethnographies of Science #HPS #STS 🧪 www.buzzsprout.com/2180146/epis...

buzzsprout.comS4 Ep 8 - Nicole C. Nelson on 'Ethnographies of Science' - The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of ScienceToday, Carmelina is joined by Dr. Nicole C. Nelson, Associate Professor in the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.&nbsp;Nicole is an ethnographer of sci...
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

New publication day! Happy to announce that our paper on irreproducibility experiences and mental health is out. We found that irreproducibility is a nearly universal experience for biomedical science grads, and that ~25% had emotional responses to it that that interfered with their work/lives.

doi.orgExperience of irreproducibility as a risk factor for poor mental health in biomedical science doctor...High rates of irreproducibility and of poor mental health in graduate students have been reported in the biomedical sciences in the past ten years, but to date, little research has investigated whethe...
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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

And for the PIs in the room: please pay extra attention to the wellbeing of your students when they're in the midst of failing to replicate something. It's a risky moment in the student life course, especially for undergrads and grads in their first few years.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

New publication day! Happy to announce that our paper on irreproducibility experiences and mental health is out. We found that irreproducibility is a nearly universal experience for biomedical science grads, and that ~25% had emotional responses to it that that interfered with their work/lives.

doi.orgExperience of irreproducibility as a risk factor for poor mental health in biomedical science doctor...High rates of irreproducibility and of poor mental health in graduate students have been reported in the biomedical sciences in the past ten years, but to date, little research has investigated whethe...

Nicole C. Nelson reposted

Berna Devezer
@devezer.bsky.social

Replying to @devezer.bsky.social

All I've learned from reading a lot and studying on science is that these boundaries have always been fuzzy and that we don't have access to a complete picture of what science is or can/will/should be. I recommend reading history of science to every scientist. It'll shake your beliefs to its core.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Trying to start off the new academic year right by moving away from the bird site, so I'm getting myself set up on Mastodon and trying this out as well. Here's a little about me: I'm an STS scholar, but I also spend time in the history of sci/tech/med, metascience, and medical humanities.

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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Beginning scientists and beginning doctors are both struggling a lot with what can be known and especially with what they themselves are capable of doing. I love helping them explore those uncertainties using tools from the humanities.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

So there's me! I tended to be a lurker on the bird site and I'm not sure whether this account will be more post-y or lurk-y. But if we share some interests, please give me a follow so I can follow you back and at least lurk on you!

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Trying to start off the new academic year right by moving away from the bird site, so I'm getting myself set up on Mastodon and trying this out as well. Here's a little about me: I'm an STS scholar, but I also spend time in the history of sci/tech/med, metascience, and medical humanities.

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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

So I'm kinda a meta-metascientist, but I also consider myself part of the metascience community, where you'll find me flying the flag for qualitative research. IMHO metascience needs more of a critical mass of folks with deep qual expertise, and I'm happy to lead the charge on that front.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Since I study enculturation into scientific communities, I tend to spend a lot of time studying trainees, and that (plus my teaching in the med school) has put me much more into contact with the medical humanities community in the past few years.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Trying to start off the new academic year right by moving away from the bird site, so I'm getting myself set up on Mastodon and trying this out as well. Here's a little about me: I'm an STS scholar, but I also spend time in the history of sci/tech/med, metascience, and medical humanities.

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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Around the time I was finishing that up, I got interested in the "reproducibility crisis." It seemed like a sea change in thinking about foundational scientific tools, like NHST. What you could or could not know from a significance test was suddenly up for debate in a big way.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

The book that I'm writing now on the replication crisis is one part historical and one part ethnographic: What were the conditions of possibility for this conversation/reform movement to emerge, and what's it like to do scientific work in this changing/changed world?

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Trying to start off the new academic year right by moving away from the bird site, so I'm getting myself set up on Mastodon and trying this out as well. Here's a little about me: I'm an STS scholar, but I also spend time in the history of sci/tech/med, metascience, and medical humanities.

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Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

I looked mouse models of psychiatric disorders for my first book because there was no shortage of disagreement about those questions. Some people though mouse models were awesome for understanding genetics, others thought they were basically useless if you wanted to understand humans.

press.uchicago.eduModel BehaviorMice are used as model organisms across a wide range of fields in science today—but it is far from obvious how studying a mouse in a maze can help us understand human problems like alcoholism or anx...
Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

I studied how scientists got socialized into belief systems about how to use mouse models to study them, and communicated those views to others. It was super fun: I met a guy who used the same brand of shampoo for his whole PhD and a woman who walked out on a date who mansplained genetics to her.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

Trying to start off the new academic year right by moving away from the bird site, so I'm getting myself set up on Mastodon and trying this out as well. Here's a little about me: I'm an STS scholar, but I also spend time in the history of sci/tech/med, metascience, and medical humanities.

Nicole C. Nelson
@nicolecnelson.bsky.social

My core research question is: how do scientists think about the knowledge production capacities of the tools they use? That is, how much do they trust the data a method generates? What kinds of limitations do they think it has? What do they think it should absolutely not be used for?

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