The History of the Impact of Materials on Society (IMOS) Course
Created in 2009 by Kevin Jones (Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida/UF) in collaboration with the Materials Research Society and the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, the Impact of Materials on Society is an undergraduate course that explores the connections between the discovery of new materials such as ceramics, glass, concrete, metals, plastics, semiconductors etc. and the development of technologies and social structures throughout human history and geography. To see these connections, the course fuses basic concepts in materials science and engineering with perspectives and methods from across the humanities and social sciences.
The class originated at the University of Florida from the twofold desire to: (1) help engineering students understand why humanities and social science classes are relevant by showing how they are connected to engineering, and (2) expose non engineers to what engineering is all about. The original course became collaborative in 2010 when Dr. Kevin Jones approached Dr. Sophia Acord about offering a class that combined materials science and humanities. Using Stephen Sass’ book The Substance of Civilization as a guide Dr. Jones and Dr. Acord developed a set of lectures that they initially taught face-to-face to 15 students. Eventually, as more professors were invited to add content and lectures the course evolved to focus on a different material and a different social principle each week of the semester. The face-to-face class has since grown to 9 instructors and approximately 175 students per class. The content from the face-to-face course was adapted for the online environment at the University of Florida in 2015.
The original course creators were:
- Dr. Kevin Jones, Materials Science and Engineering
- Pamela Hupp, Materials Research Society
- Dr. Sophia Acord, Sociology and Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere
- Dr. Sean Adams, History
- Dr. Marsha Bryant, English
- Dr. Florin Curta, History
- Dr. Mary Ann Eaverly, Classics
- Dr. Bonnie Effros, History and Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere
- Dr. Susan Gillespie, Anthropology
- Dr. Ken Sassaman, Anthropology
Additional contributors to the development of IMOS
Jihua Chen (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Blythe G. Clark (Sandia National Laboratory)
Anne Donnelly (University of Florida)
Elizabeth (Betsy) Fleischer (Materials Research Society)
Wook Jun Nam (Pennsylvania State University)
Ainissa Ramirez (author, science evangelist)
Aditi Risbud (Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation)
Bartlett Sheinberg (Houston Community College)
Andrew Shreve (University of New Mexico)
Hitesh Soneji (City College of San Francisco)
Dexian Ye (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Jenny Andrews (University of Florida)
John Boeckl (Wright Patterson AFB)
Thomas Crawford (University of South Carolina)
Piotr Grodzinski (National Cancer Institute)
Nikhil Gupta (NYU Polytechnic Institute)
Richard Hartel (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Larry L. Hench (Florida Institute of Technology)
Michael Hickner (Penn State University)
Michael Ho (University of Houston)
Douglas Hofmann (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Paul Holloway (University of Florida)
Golden Kumar (Texas Tech University)
Navin Manjooran (Siemens AG)
Michelle Manuel (University of Florida)
Juan Nino (University of Florida)
Soydan Ozcan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Devendra Patil (University of Houston)
Scott Perry (University of Florida)
Carlos Rinaldo (University of Florida)
Megan L. Robertson (University of Houston)
Sudipta Seal (University of Central Florida)
Tamil Selvan (University of Central Florida)
Gangbing Song (University of Houston)
Alan Taub (University of Michigan)
Yihong Wu (Nat’l. University of Singapore)
Jiangeneg Xue (University of Florida)
This Instructor Guide
This Instructor Guide is a companion to Impact of Materials in Society, a textbook developed at the University of Florida (UF) with support from the Materials Research Society, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. This Instructor Guide augments the textbook with a guide to instruction, supplemental materials (including a downloadable course template), and in-development content for new modules.
Increasing Social Literacy In Future Innovators | Kevin Jones
During the 2020 TEDxUF speaker series, Kevin Jones spoke about IMOS and encouraged educators to equip engineering and non-engineering students with the tools needed to create socially responsible engineering solutions.
Want more innovation? Try connecting the dots between engineering and humanities | Kevin Jones, Sophia Acord, Susan Gillespie
Kevin Jones and collaborators Sophia Acord (sociologist, former Associate Director of the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere) and Susan Gillespie (Professor, UF Department of Anthropology) also penned this article for The Conversation in 2015 describing the importance of the IMOS approach in producing innovations for society.
