Bono Shih
Postdoctoral Scholar in Engineering Ethics
My journey to the Leonhard Center:
I am a postdoc scholar in engineering ethics jointly appointed by the Leonhard Center and the Rock Ethics Institute. There had been, in fact, a winding path before I landed here. I began college in Taiwan’s most prestigious STEM program as an aspiring electrical engineer, but when it came to graduate school, I lost interest in engineering and wanted to pursue a degree allowing me to study engineering from the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. To make the transition, I went to Virginia Tech for a PhD degree in science and technology studies (STS).
While at Virginia Tech, I found out there is a Department of Engineering Education. When pursuing my degree in STS, I began getting involved in engineering education: I took the Department’s graduate courses, served as an instructor in the first-year engineering program, and obtained a graduate certificate in engineering education. My newfound background in STS landed itself well to the ethics and philosophy side of engineering. Fresh ideas kept coming to my mind while I spent time in engineering education. I started publishing articles in engineering ethics and philosophy of engineering and ended up writing a dissertation that takes a historical-linguistic-philosophical approach to tackle diversity and inclusion in modern engineering.
My current appointment with the Leonhard Center and the Rock Ethics Institute—one in the College of Engineering and another in the College of Liberal Arts—presents an ideal place to sustain my work intersecting philosophy and engineering. When I work with engineering faculty to make ethics an integral part of engineering education, I also think about what ethics means and reflect on our assumption about ethics. At other times, while working with philosophers on the ethics of emerging technologies, I also explore practical ways to incorporate new perspectives in engineering education. In my role, I believe going back and forth between philosophy and engineering would bring together people and knowledge from different disciplines and generate exciting new ideas and projects in engineering education.
Bono is passionate about:
- Engineering ethics (including non-Western traditions)
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering
- Philosophy of engineering and technology
- Technology and human values
- General education for students in engineering
- First-year engineering education
Proud moments:
- Publishing his first article in philosophy, 2023
- Publishing his first book chapter in engineering ethics, 2021
- Winning a scholarship and a research grant from the Taiwanese government, 2017 and 2021, respectively
- Publishing his first book chapter in STS, 2018
- Walking into his classroom and finding that students wrote “I LOVE BONO” on the blackboard, 2017
- Being the president of Taiwanese Student Association at Virginia Tech, 2015
- Having a paper accepted by the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), 2013
- Holding a workshop teaching 40+ fellow electrical engineering students about Verilog (a hardware description language), 2011
What to contact Bono for:
Email Bono if you would like to learn more about ethics, diversity and inclusion, or philosophy of engineering and technology. He also welcomes collaboration on research or teaching related to the above areas.
