In Memoriam

Sharon Begley was the senior science writer at STAT, the four-year-old life sciences publication of the Boston Globe. She was also the science editor and columnist at newsweek, the science columnist at the Wall Street Journal, and the senior health and science correspondent at Reuters. She was the author of three books on neuroscience and the recipient of numerous awards for her writing.

Lawrence Busch was University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Michigan State University. He had been on the faculty at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Lancaster University (UK), and what is now the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement. He was (co)author or (co)editor of 16 books and ~150 other publications. He was past president of both the Rural Sociological Society and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole, an elected member of the Académie d’Agriculture de France and recipient of a doctor honoris causa from the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Dr. Busch’s interests included the use of standards in public and private policymaking, and public participation in the policy process and the consequences of neoliberal policies for democratic governance.

James J. McCarthy was Harvard’s Agassiz Professor of Oceanography. From 1982 until 2002 he served as the Director of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He worked on all the major oceans and several regional seas, and has published research papers on ocean production and climate cycles, ecosystem management and whale contributions to coastal ecology. He was the first chair of steering committee for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, and the founding editor of the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. He led Working Group II for the third Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment. He also had major roles in the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and the 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment. He served as president and chair of the Board of Directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2008-10). He was a member of the Board of Directors for the Union of Concerned Scientists, and served as its chair from 2009-15. In 2012, he was appointed to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He had been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2018 he was a co-recipient of the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement

Trevor Pinch was Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His main research areas included: on the sociology of technology and how users engage with technology; sound studies and music and in particular the development of musical instruments and sound objects; and markets and the economy with specific attention to the study of selling and persuasion. His last book was a series of interview conducted by Italian Media Scholar, Simone Tosini, Entanglements: Conversations on the Human Traces of Science, Technology and Sound, MIT Press 2017. He is also a performing musician with the Electric Golem. He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Maastricht in 2012 and received the 2018 J.D. Bernal career award from the Society for Social Studies of Science read more about his award here.