Faculty Fellows
Ekaterina Babintseva
Dr. Ekaterina (Katya) Babintseva is an Assistant Professor in the History of Technology at Purdue University. She is interested in how computer technology intervenes in social and political life, as well as the scientific practice. She is currently finishing a book manuscript titled Learning with Machines in the Cold War United States and the Soviet Union, which examines a connection between pedagogical computing--a movement to build special teaching computers that would replace human instructors in the US and USSR--and artificial intelligence research. Prior to joining Purdue, Dr. Babintseva held a Hixon Riggs Early Career Fellowship in Science and Technology Studies at Harvey Mudd College. Her work has been supported by the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (University of Cambridge), the Charles Babbage Institute (University of Minnesota), the Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology, and Society (University of South Carolina), the Linda Hall Library, and the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Email: ebabints@purdue.edu
Andrew H. Bellisari
Andrew H. Bellisari is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Purdue University. He specializes in the history of decolonization in North Africa and Southeast Asia, and his research addresses questions related to warfare, post-colonial state- and nation-building, and civil society. Previously, he was a founding faculty member at Fulbright University Vietnam in Hô Chí Minh City and a Vietnam Program Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Bellisari received his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University.
Email: ahbellis@purdue.edu
Jessica R. Collier
Jessica R. Collier is an assistant professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Her research lies at the intersection of media, technology, and democracy. She uses experimental and survey methodologies to explore how the information people encounter on digital and social media shape their civic and political attitudes and behaviors. Her work has been published in Political Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and New Media & Society, among others. Dr. Collier received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.
Email: jrcollie@purdue.edu
Austin R. Cooper
Austin R. Cooper is an Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University and Senior Research Associate at SciencesPo CERI. His research relies on declassified U.S. archival documents to understand the role of nuclear technologies in U.S. foreign policy, including relationships with allies, adversaries, and international organizations. He is finishing a book about France’s emergence as a nuclear weapon state during the 1960s and its first nuclear testing program in the Algerian Sahara at that time. He has published related work in the Nonproliferation Review and Cold War History. He completed fellowships in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He earned a PhD in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Email: cooperar@purdue.edu
Michelle LaBonte
Michelle LaBonte is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Purdue University. Her research focuses on the history of diagnostics and therapeutics. Her first book, Challenging Diagnosis: Cystic Fibrosis, Diagnostic Technologies, and the Persistence of Uncertainty in Medicine, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Challenging Diagnosis examines the sociocultural and scientific factors that have contributed to diagnostic uncertainty in medicine, foregrounding the impact of such uncertainty on patients and families. Some of her recent work has appeared in the Journal of the History of Medicine and the Journal of the History of Biology. She received a PhD in the History of Science and a PhD in Virology, both from Harvard University.
Email: mlabonte@purdue.edu
Zachary Loeb
Zachary Loeb is an assistant professor in the department of history at Purdue University. His research focuses on the history of technology, the history of disasters, and the history of technological disasters. He is currently working on a book project exploring the year 2000 computer crisis (better known as Y2K).
Email: zloeb@purdue.edu
Marcus Mann
Marcus Mann is an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University. His overarching interest is in how conflicting cultural knowledge authorities affect individuals' perceptions of science, politics, religion, and reality more generally. He has studied this general question in the context of atheist social movements, polarization in political media, and attitudes toward science and scientists. Currently he is working on several projects related to political media diets and susceptibility to political disinformation and extremism.
Email: mannml@purdue.edu
Brett Sherrick
Brett Sherrick (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is an associate professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University and the co-founder and co-director of the Purdue Research in Media Effects (PRIME) Lab. His research interests include entertainment media, media psychology, and media industries, and he primarily examines these topics from a social scientific perspective. He is particularly interested in how video games and other media can improve the lives of media consumers. He has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications, and he was named a Promising Professor by the Mass Communication and Society Division at the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).
Email: bsherric@purdue.edu
Diana Zulli
Diana Zulli is an associate professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Her research focuses on the interaction of communication theory, digital technology, and political rhetoric. Specifically, she is interested in how communication theories function in, and are affected by, the rapidly changing digital communication environment, how news media shapes political discourse, and how digital technology affects social and political processes. Her work has been published in a number of communication journals including Communication Theory, New Media & Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Information, Communication, & Society, Social Media + Society, and the International Journal of Communication, among others. Her teaching areas include American political communication, public relations, and crisis communication.
Email: dzulli@purdue.edu