Gary Downey
Alumni Distinguished Professor
of Science
and Technology in Society
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Gary Downey is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech, where he has taught since 1983. A mechanical engineer and cultural anthropologist, he is recognized internationally for integrative work founding a unique interdisciplinary field called Engineering Studies.
Dr. Downey’s early research examined how learning engineering shapes students as people. His 55 publications include four books, supported by 17 grants totaling $1.3 million. The Machine in Me: An Anthropologist Sits Among Computer Engineers won praise from reviewers for mapping tensions experienced by engineers in computer-aided design.
His award-winning course, Engineering Cultures, helps students become critical analysts of their own commitments. Demonstrating “rare pedagogical imagination,” writes the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Dr. Downey advances the “startling idea that students can become more effective engineers by learning to listen and make sense of views that are different from their own.” The course has helped more than 10,000 students and working engineers. A Penn State professor calls Dr. Downey “the nation’s leader in preparing engineering students to work with engineers from other countries.”
Dr. Downey nurtured Engineering Studies by publishing synthetic reviews of research on engineers and engineering, founding the International Network for Engineering Studies, and then founding and editing the journal Engineering Studies and book series at both MIT Press and Morgan & Claypool Publishers. A former National Science Foundation division director writes, “[I]f we are truly able to transform engineering education for the 21st century, we will look back at [Downey’s] writing as the seminal work that defined what we should be doing.”
Winner of the American Society for Engineering Education’s Sterling Omsted Award for “distinguished contributions to liberal education in engineering education,” Dr. Downey has also won at Virginia Tech the Wine Award for career excellence in teaching, the XCaliber Award for excellence in teaching with technology, the Graduate School award for best dissertation advisor, and the Diggs Teaching Scholar Award for innovative scholarship in teaching. Dr. Downey completed graduate degrees at the University of Chicago and two undergraduate degrees at Lehigh University.
"I view my primary responsibility in the STS graduate program as helping passionate and ambitious, but frequently uncertain, students gain the tools and confidence to tackle complex problems of science and technology in society. I take great pride in helping them map possible futures by reexamining past interests and experiences. I find it a pleasure helping them become knowledgeable and thoughtful researchers and teachers."