Arpita Roy

ARPITA ROY, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, was awarded a grant in October 2021 to aid research on “Classifying Science: Particle Physics at CERN.” The research project is a contribution to the sociology and anthropology of ‘big science’ through a detailed study of by far the biggest science experiments undertaken, on the Large Hadron Collider, at CERN, in Switzerland. It touched upon the discovery of the Higgs boson to tell the parallel story of what scientists have to say about their commitments and concerns, the epistemic norms guiding their experiments, and the questions they ask of themselves and of outsiders. The project applied an ethnographic perspective to science-in-the-making. This research has been completed and the book based on the research has been approved to go into publication and production by Columbia University Press. The title of the book is Unfinished Nature: Particle Physics at CERN. As an account written by a non-scientist about science, the most powerful appeal of this book is its interdisciplinary approach.