Dr. Santiago Molina

Biography

Santiago J. Molina grew up in the United States and central Mexico. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA from the University of Chicago. Santiago's work intersects science and technology studies, political sociology, and racial and ethnic relations, with a particular focus on bioethics. His research looks into the deeply entangled relationship between knowledge production and social order. He is currently pursuing several research projects, including one on the Biopolitics of Genome Editing, which analyzes the institutionalization of CRISPR-Cas technology. His NSF-funded project aims to detail how scientists adopt CRISPR in their work and to explain the conditions under which scientists articulate ethical standards for genome editing. Since 2015, Santiago has been following the trajectory of genome editing practices from the lab to clinic, extending this research to explore racial politics in recruiting patients for genome editing clinical trials for sickle-cell anemia and beta thalassemia. Another project, Categorical Heterogeneity in Population Genetics and Biomedicine, examines the sampling practices and classification conventions in human biology from the mid-Twentieth Century to the present. In collaboration with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, Santiago is investigating how scientists in different disciplines conceptualize and operationalize human difference through 'ancestry' and 'population.' His teaching aims to cultivate critical thinking about the relationship between science and society, and he has taught courses on sociological methods, introductory sociology, science and technology studies, and sociology of illness.

Research Interests

Courses