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Ember McCoy

@embermcc.bsky.social
198 followers 164 following 17 posts

STS-er • political ecologist • organizer currently: postdoc @ penn state formerly: phd, university of michigan | swammer, carthage college

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Reposted by Ember McCoy
The Real News Network @therealnews.com · 24/06/2026
“I was there when the FBI showed up. They threw flashbangs into the upstairs bedrooms, they used battering rams… these raids were very shocking, very violent.”
therealnews.com
'Very shocking, very violent': FBI raids homes of Michigan students and workers for Palestine activism
“I was there when the FBI showed up. They threw flashbangs into the upstairs bedrooms, they used battering rams… these raids were very shocking, very violent.”
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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
“Today, over 5,000 faculty across Penn State campuses, including University Park and the Commonwealth Campuses, won their faculty union, the Penn State Faculty Alliance, SEIU Local 668, with 2,510 faculty members voting Union Yes!!! …the union won with almost 75% of the vote!!”
pennstatefacultyalliance.org
We Won!!!
Thousands of Penn State Faculty Vote to Join SEIU Local 668.
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
New(ish) article w my former masters advisees Anna Bunting, Dinah George, John McClure, Megan Husted & Skyler Kriese and our community advisors Rhonda Anderson, Dr. Leonard, & Theresa Landrum is out in Environmental Justice. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
8 more days to submit an abstract to our 4s panel, "Taking Back Technopower: STS and strategic interventions in the fight against technofascism." Looking forward to an engaging conversation centered on the (totally small, very easy) q: "how do we win?" Apply by 4/30: www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...
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emma may @emmamay.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
New article by Britt Paris, Serita Sargent and me in Big Data & Society We discuss collective bargaining around AI and how organized labor can meaningfully push back on—and even refuse—the pervasive narrative of AI inevitability journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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emma may @emmamay.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
#CfA I'm organizing an open panel "Resisting the Datafied University" at #4S2026 in Toronto Please share widely & submit! www.4sonline.org/call_for_sub...
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
BREAKING: In response to huge cuts in Trump's budget request, NSF is shuttering its SBE directorate. Staff will be transferred to other parts of the agency and "grants that align with Administration priorities" will be maintained. That & more w/ @maxkozlov.bsky.social & @edwrdchen.bsky.social
nature.com
Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration
Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.
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Jennifer N. Victor @jenvictor.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Not the main point here, but I do not ever recall a federal agency making significant programmatic and personnel changes as a result of the PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL, which does not change any law or funding allocations. Congress hasn't acted yet. What are we doing here?
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justine zhang @tisjune.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
three more weeks to submit abstracts to our 4S open panel, that articulate STS-flavoured responses to the most important question of our times: "how do we win?"
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Lucy Parsons Labs @lucyparsonslabs.com · 15/03/2026
If you support LPL and want to help us, please spread the word! We are looking for some early-career person to join us for a summer of research. Full details >> short.lucyparsonslabs.com/lpl2026apps
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Big Data & Society @bigdatasoc.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Join us for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 4: Governing Digital Infrastructures: Platforms, AI, and the Public Interest (Mar 18 | 15:00–16:30 GMT / 11:00 AM–12:30 PM EST) uky.zoom.us/j/83382671765 #DataGovernance #STS
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justine zhang @tisjune.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
hi STS people! are you engaged in political struggle against fascism? do you have things to share: strategic reflections, organizing artefacts, etc.? do you have thoughts about how we will win? if so, you should submit something to our open panel at 4S this year! www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...
Title: Taking Back Technopower: STS and strategic interventions for the fight against technofascism 
with authors and research areasThe current moment is characterized by resurgent struggles against technofascism. These struggles include community resistance against data centers, strategic actions against tech companies complicit in genocidal violence, and organizing efforts across many sectors against the proliferation of AI in the workplace. This open panel gathers people engaged in these sites of struggle to collectively consider the following question: how can STS approaches advance these struggles against fascist technopower, and work towards constructing more liberatory futures?

In addressing this question, we seek to surface the incipient militant potential of STS, often submerged under scholarship that muddies strategic analysis and disarms political action through the register of subversive critique. Through close attention to relationality and sociality, STS may help build solidarities while unsettling the sedimented categories that impede movement building (Breymen et al, 2017). By incorporating materialist, political economic accounts of technology, STS may help push beyond the boundaries of "ethical tech” by revealing the imbrications of economic and financial processes with technoscience (Birch, 2013). And as a roving, interdisciplinary field attuned to embodied and situated practices (Haraway, 1988), an STS lens may help ensure that analyses are constantly attentive to the lively contingencies of on-the-ground struggles.
We seek to explore theories born through political struggle, and examples of how STS theory informs praxis. Submissions may include, but are not limited to: strategic reflections from organizers and activists; historical accounts that can inform future organizing and activism; or the analysis of organizing artefacts (e.g., propaganda, slogans, campaigns) and their role in advancing political struggle. We will facilitate this panel as an open discussion among folks situated across different sites of struggle, aiming to provide a space for advancing the struggle against technofascism through the development of relationships, theories, and strategic insights.
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
A huge win for the residents I work with in Southeast Michigan! We're celebrating this victory, while continuing the work to push for a system that prioritizes community health in the first place without relying on on polluter-payouts after damage is done. lnkd.in/er67EuP5
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Teawhalem @teawhalem.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Sierra Club & SW Detroiters Celebrate $100M Penalty, Clean Air Wins in EES Coke Ruling cleantechnica.com/2026/02/17/s...
cleantechnica.com
Sierra Club & SW Detroiters Celebrate $100M Penalty, Clean Air Wins in EES Coke Ruling - CleanTechnica
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe. Or support our Kickstarter campaign! DTE and EES Coke were ordered to invest $20 million in community projects. Detroit, MI —...
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public health guy @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
i don’t see how any of the benefits of chatgpt and other consumer-facing LLMs can possibly outweigh their incredible ability to induce suicides
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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 15/12/2025
didn't CMU recently announce that it's going to be like extremely important that incoming students know how to use this thing that nobody seems to use in reality, and that appears to make work reliably worse for anyone who's not half-assing everything they do?
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
I want to drive a dump truck of cow manure to the Microsoft headquarters and drop it off in the lobby as a thank you. They didn't ask for it, they didn't want it, but maybe they can figure out how to get rid of it.
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The Real News Network @therealnews.com · 06/11/2025
As the federal government continues its top-down assault on higher education, universities are internally building repression and surveillance machines that mirror the Trump administration.
therealnews.com
Campus life is unrecognizable in the Trump era: ‘There’s so many cops everywhere’
As the federal government continues its top-down assault on higher education, universities are internally building repression and surveillance machines that mirror the Trump administration.
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Nikhil Shah @grandmastershah.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
"Europeans recognize his vision about free public transit and universal childcare. We expect our governments to make these kinds of services accessible to all of us,” said Verbeek. “We pay higher taxes and get civilized societies in return."
theguardian.com
Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’
Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 29/10/2025
If someone says (as they did to my student), Are you trying to fight AI by yourself? They can say, thankfully I am not alone. And if it is useful, STPP has developed an explanation: stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/research/com...
stpp.fordschool.umich.edu
Why we do not use generative AI in STPP
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 29/10/2025
As people increasingly use AI—especially with institutional support—it is getting harder for scholars (esp junior) to practice informed refusal. I am guiding my students how to still say no, and explain how it violates their ethical and environmental principles. A movement starts from below!
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nathan kim @nathanckim.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
in @michigandaily.bsky.social -- Op-ed written by students and grad workers organizing against disciplinary charges for students alleged to have protested Accountability in a time of genocide www.michigandaily.com/opinion/op-e...
michigandaily.com
Accountability in a time of genocide
The regents, who steadfastly refuse to cease funding the murder of Palestinian families and directing police violence against our community, must be held accountable. Disrupting a genocide is a moral ...
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nathan kim @nathanckim.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Are you a UM worker/student and want to hear better takes than the dude below on AI from university of Michigan faculty, students, staff? then join the mass meeting on 10/28 at 7 to stop the UM-Los Alamos data center and its support of nuclear weapons! bit.ly/UMichNoAIMeeting
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Planet Detroit @planetdetroit.org · 16/09/2025
The government is seeking injunctive relief and penalties of up to $109,024 per day, per environmental violation from EES Coke Battery and DTE Energy. planetdetroit.org/2025/09/dte-...
planetdetroit.org
DTE Energy's control over Zug Island subsidiary 'unprecedented': Expert witness
DTE Energy companies actively operate EES Coke Battery on Zug Island and make environmental decisions, a U.S. attorney says.
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Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
This example particularly stood out to me: great way to piss off voters in a swing state is by cancelling grants related to air pollution. "A doctoral student’s grant was canceled because she was studying low-income neighborhoods with high rates of air pollution."
A neighborhood in River Rouge, Mich. A doctoral student’s grant was canceled because she was studying low-income neighborhoods with high rates of air pollution.Ember McCoy, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan who studies the politics of air pollution, found out on Monday that her N.S.F. grant was canceled. She did not receive an official reason for the cancellation. But she sensed it was coming, she said, because in the United States, the places with the highest rates of air pollution are low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Ms. McCoy was planning to use the rest of her grant money to pay community partners in southwest Detroit, with whom she collaborates to conduct research. She also hoped to use the funds to host a public presentation about her research for the community she studies.
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Siri Chilukuri @siric.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
I talked to @embermcc.bsky.social, one of the hundreds of scientists who had their grant money revoked by NSF. Her research, focused on environmental injustices, and exemplifies what type of research the government is trying to eliminate. @insideclimatenews.org insideclimatenews.org/news/0605202...
insideclimatenews.org
Michigan Researcher’s Work on Air Pollution and Racial Inequities Caught in Funding Freeze at National Science Foundation - Inside Climate News
A doctoral candidate examining air pollution effects in mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods in Detroit was among the wave of researchers who have had federal funds halted.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 07/05/2025
I find these articles frustrating because in so far as AI is denigrating academic labor and the learning process (and it is), it’s doing so in a system that was already denigrating academic labor and turning college into a transactional investment.
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 22/04/2025
Proud of you @embermcc.bsky.social! Gift link to NYT article on NSF terminations here: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/s...
Text from NYT article: Ember McCoy, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan who studies the politics of air pollution, found out on Monday that her N.S.F. grant was canceled. She did not receive an official reason for the cancellation. But she sensed it was coming, she said, because in the United States, the places with the highest rates of air pollution are low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Ms. McCoy was planning to use the rest of her grant money to pay community partners in southwest Detroit, with whom she collaborates to conduct research. She also hoped to use the funds to host a public presentation about her research for the community she studies.

There is also a picture of homes in River Rouge, Michigan.
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Live footage of me today:
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 22/04/2025
We also need to talk about the knock-on burdens these grant terminations are creating, for university administrators, students, and PIs, who have to find replacement funds, hop on crisis meetings, figure out how to file appeals, expedite paperwork and reimbursement requests, etc.
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 22/04/2025
NEW: Mahmoud Khalil's wife gave birth to their child without him after ICE denied their request to let him be present. “This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer,” Dr. Abdalla said. “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud."
nytimes.com
Mahmoud Khalil’s Son Arrives After ICE Refuses to Let Him Attend Birth (Gift Article)
Mr. Khalil, a permanent resident detained in Louisiana, had requested a monitored furlough for the birth. His request was denied in less than an hour.
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Max Coleman @maxecoleman.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
This is so depressing: the Trump admin has terminated a grant that was going to reinterview Black Americans from the National Survey of American Life, one of the most important mental health surveys of the 21st century and one that sociologists still use more than 2 decades after data were collected
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SJSCentralTX @sjscentraltx.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Does that include downriver communities, e.g. Ecorse, Inkster, River Rouge? The pollutants in that area have been so bad that in years past (not sure how bad it is now), you knew when the wind was out of the SW due to the rotten egg aroma from the smelters.
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Ethan White @ethanwhite.weecology.org · 22/04/2025
There are some folks (who I can vouch for for whatever that's worth) tracking the terminated NSF grants to facilitate coordinated responses, media coverage, etc: Form to add a terminated grant: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... Current grants on the list: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
airtable.com
Airtable | Everyone's app platform
Airtable is a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. Customize your workflow, collaborate, and achieve ambitious outcomes. Get started for free.
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 21/04/2025
My PhD student's NSF grant was terminated today. Her dissertation investigates why air pollution monitoring, metrics, and regulations don't properly capture the harms experienced by marginalized communities--esp in the most polluted Detroit neighborhoods. She and I are happy to talk with press etc.
nsf.gov
NSF Award Search: Award # 2240343 - Constructing Credible Knowledge and Expertise in Air Pollution Regulation and Monitoring: The Problem of Quantification Lock
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Jane Liebschutz, MD MPH (she/her) @liebschutz.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
All NIH study sections canceled indefinitely. This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities.
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 15/11/2024
So excited about this! If you want to help us make a Michigan-based science and tech policy fellowship a reality, see the job posting below (Nov 17 deadline)! And if you want to apply, stay tuned!! 👀 fordschool.umich.edu/news/2024/st... #scipolicy #techpolicy #altac #policy #michigan
fordschool.umich.edu
STPP to establish Michigan science and technology fellowship
The Ford School of Public Policy’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) Program is poised to create a new pathway for early career scientists and engineers to learn about, develop, an...
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Geographers for Justice in Palestine @geogboycott.bsky.social · 07/11/2024
GEOGRAPHERS for JUSTICE in PALESTINE a pre-AAG workshop Sunday, March 23, 2025 - Detroit, MI Please share widely, and sign up for further information below. #geosky docs.google.com/document/d/e...
docs.google.com
SAVE THE DATE- GEOGRAPHERS for JUSTICE in PALESTINE
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 17/07/2024
Did you leave the #EASST4S2024 presidential plenary session wondering how to put STS in concert with applied policy from the academy (while mentoring students to do the same)? Check out University of Michigan’s Technology Assessment Project or find these folks (unfortunately their panel was Tues).
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 17/07/2024
This article could also be written about Ann Arbor amid the frequent power outages due to DTE’s crumbling infrastructure.
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 17/07/2024
This panel was incredible — I learned so much from my colleagues about this project that I knew about, but didn’t *know* — UM’s Science, Technology & Public Policy program is doing truly remarkable work that engages STS in applied policymaking & transforms early career scholars in the process.
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 11/07/2024
Looking forward to the #EASST #4S conference starting on Tuesday!! Who will be there? I am co-organizing a panel about UM's Technology Assessment Project, Tuesday at 4pm along with @mollyak.bsky.social, Denia Djokić, and Margarita Rodriguez Morales! #STS stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/technology-a...
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Ember McCoy @embermcc.bsky.social · 17/07/2024
Environmental exposure has become a troubling & widespread component of everyday life; but how have our understandings of environmental exposure also *become troubled* by the democratization of epistemologies surrounding it? Join our series Friday at #EASST4S2024 to hear more!
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 10/11/2023
Looking forward to our 3 panels on the Next-Generation Intersections of STS and Public Policy today!! First one is up at 8:30am (then 1:30 and 3:40pm!) Room 313A. Join us!! #4sHonolulu23 #4S2023 #STS
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