Research
Big Science & Society: The Arecibo Observatory
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My current project traces the decision-making history behind the Arecibo Observatory’s creation, funding, siting, and eventual collapse in 2020, situating that history within the geopolitics of US–Puerto Rico relations and center-periphery dynamics in Big Science. The Observatory’s 57-year run — from its Cold War-era construction to its collapse into the karst landscape it was built into — offers a case study in how large scientific infrastructures entangle with the communities that host them, and what happens when those infrastructures are damaged, defunded, or abandoned.
Research draws on archival material, oral histories, and ongoing interviews with current and former Arecibo Observatory staff and community members in Puerto Rico.
This project builds on my earlier work on transportation infrastructure and disability (see Transportation Infrastructure & Disability), extending questions about who infrastructures are built for, who maintains them, and who is left to account for their failure, into the world of large-scale scientific facilities.