John Willinsky
Khosla Family Professor of Education & Director of Program in Science, Technology, and Society
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John Willinsky is Khosla Family Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. He began his career as a school teacher in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, before going on to complete degrees in English, Education Theory, and the Sociology of Education. Among his eleven books are Empire of Words: the Reign of the OED (Princeton University Press, 1994); Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), and Technologies of Knowing (Beacon Press, 2000), while his most recent book, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (MIT Press, 2006) has won two outstanding book awards (as did Learning to Divide the World).

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Education (U.S), Willinsky also directs the Public Knowledge Project, in a partnership with Simon Fraser University Library, which has developed award-winning open source (free) software for the online management and publishing of principally open access journals and books. The software is currently deployed by over 7,000 research journals in 25 languages around the world, and he continues to collaborate on journal-development initiatives in Africa, Latin America, and South East Asia in an effort to extend the human right to know. He is currently completing a book on the pre-history of the intellectual properties of learning (from Saint Jerome to John Locke), as well as assisting in the ongoing redesign and reengineering of his project’s publishing software to foster a greater global and public exchange of research and scholarship.

Kyoko Sato
Associate Director and STS Honors Program Director
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Kyoko is the STS Associate Director and lecturer. Her research explores how cultural meanings, politics, and institutional frameworks intersect in the development of technology. She is currently completing a book manuscript, The Making of Genetically Modified Food: Culture, Politics and Policy in France, Japan and the United States, and conducting a comparative study that examines cultural politics of nuclear energy after World War II and the effect of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and the United States. Her fields of teaching include the politics and culture of food, environmental politics, globalization, social theory, and methods of social sciences. Dr. Sato received her PhD in sociology from Princeton University, MA in journalism from New York University, and BA in English from the University of Tokyo. She was a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for the Social Sciences at Cornell University and taught as a lecturer in the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies and in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Before entering the academia, Dr. Sato worked as a reporter for The Japan Times, an English-language daily in Tokyo.

Stephany D. Prince
Program Manager
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Stephany joined the STS team in June 2012. She has a strong background in student services, community relations and partnership development. She is a panelist on the Stanford Judicial Affairs Hearing Panel and also participates in other small working groups around the Stanford community. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority, INC. Stephany has always enjoyed serving her community and has served on several executive cabinets including San Jose Chapter of the NAACP and the California State Baptist Convention, INC. She’s been acknowledged by CSU Chancellor Charles Reed for her participation in the CSU Super Sunday Initiative and other local and state level dignitaries for her community service. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Criminal Justice from San Jose State University. For many years she served as a consultant to the SJSU African-American Advisory Group and the SJSU President’s Office. Stephany enjoys conducting gospel music workshops and choral vocal training. Above all, she enjoys providing inspirational talks to all young people from the college bound high achiever to the at-risk youth that sit at local juvenile halls and centers. Simply put, she devotes her life to serving others and being the difference not just making one.

Sierra Vallin
Student Services Officer
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Sierra originally joined the STS team in July 2014 as the Interim Student Services Officer and returned as the permanent Student Service officer in December 2015. She has been a student services professional since 2008. Sierra earned her B.A. in Women's Studies at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. After accepting a position within a higher education institution, she quickly realized her passion for the collegiate demographic. To become a better communicator, advisor, and counselor, Sierra obtained her M.A. in Psychology at Texas Southern University. There she was appointed as a Graduate Assistant in the University Counseling Center where she provided individual and group counseling in addition to hosting on campus workshops. With her strong background in higher education administration and counseling, she looks forward to assisting STS students in achieving excellence. As a  relatively new Californian, in her leisure time she enjoys exploring the Bay Area, trying new food, reading and spending time with her husband and children. 

Andrew Weger
Program Associate
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Andrew joined the STS team in September 2012. He has a strong background in Educational Technology providing information and resources for the special needs community. Before working with STS, Andrew worked as a Scheduling Coordinator for the University of Registrar at Stanford providing scheduling services and preparing for the schedule of classes. He is currently pursuing an Associate’s Degree in Enterprise Networking at Foothill Community College and hopes to grow in his technical and networking skills, providing services for those who need it.  Andrew has always enjoyed working and volunteering in programs that benefit those with special needs and providing help for their families. Above all, he enjoys people and believes in speaking for those who are verbally challenged and who find it difficult to tell their story.

Kevin DiPirro
STS Writing Specialist and Lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric
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Kevin is the dedicated Writing Specialist for STS. He is a writer and dramatist who joined the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford in 1999. He teaches the Feature Article, Performance, and the advanced seminar, Tech and Human Values. Kevin is the recipient of major grants from the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. His current grant, the Differences Project, looks at various creative tensions in perspective pertaining to technology and culture. He will be devising an immersive performance piece, Lilith’s Bike Dream, which mashes up Moby Dick, Lilith, a Sumerian goddess, and a series of dreams about buying a bike for his son. Kevin is a graduate of Swarthmore College (English lit.), U.C. Berkeley (Orality and Performance) and SF State (Creative Writing). His plays, including Through Shite to Shannon, Big Fun, and Feeld Play, have been produced in New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Stanford. Originally from Westhampton Beach, New York, Kevin now resides in Pacifica with his family of two children, Sebastian and Simone.