About
Shobita Parthasarathy is a professor of public policy and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program. Her research focuses on the comparative and international politics and policy related to science and technology. She is interested in how to develop innovation, and innovation policy, to better achieve public interest and social justice goals. Much of her work has focused on the governance of emerging science and technology, particularly those that have uncertain environmental, social, ethical, political, and health implications. She is the author of multiple articles and two books: Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press 2007; paperback 2012), which influenced the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the patentability of human genes; and Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017) which won the Robert K. Merton Prize from the American Sociological Association. Her new research focuses on equity in innovation policy on the politics of inclusive innovation in international development, with a focus on India. Parthasarathy also directs the Technology Assessment Project, which recently published a report on the implications of large language models, a type of artificial intelligence. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and master's and PhD from Cornell University.