Dr. Kelly Bronson is the Canada Research Chair in Science and Society, a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society, and an Associate Professor within the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Kelly Bronson is a social scientist studying science-society tensions that erupt around controversial technologies (GMOs, fracking, big data & AI) and their governance. Her research aims to bring community values into conversation with technical knowledge in the production of evidence-based decision-making. She has published her work in regional, national and international journals. She has several competitive grant-funded projects looking at emergent technologies used in agriculture and in environmental impact assessment.
Dr. Bronson runs the Canadian Network for Science and Democracy which has a US counterpart at Harvard University under Dr. Sheila Jasanoff. She holds several advisory positions on large research grants operating out of the US and Europe and she is on the Editorial Boards of Science Communication as well as the University of Toronto Press book series on Technoscience and Society. She regularly sits on expert committees and is frequently asked to communicate her knowledge to academic and public audiences. She welcomes enquiries from students interested in undertaking research and pursuing graduate studies in her areas of expertise.
Before joining the University of Ottawa, Dr. Bronson was the Director of a Science and Technology Studies program at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Cultural Studies from York University, Toronto, as well as a Master’s degree in Sociology of Technology from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Before her training in the social sciences, Dr. Bronson earned two degrees in biology and worked as a lab bench scientist practicing genetics/plant biology at Queen’s University.
Dr. Bronson is authorised to supervise students at all levels, including Ph.D.