Hugh Gusterson

Dr. Gusterson’s research focuses on the intersection of science and security studies with a particular interest in the ways knowledge claims are made to seem true.  Author and co-editor of six books, he has written for academic and popular audiences on nuclear weapons, counterinsurgency,  drone warfare, and the social life of algorithms.  He also has a regular column for Sapiens and has written over 60 columns for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  He is currently working on a book tentatively titled Tinkering with Armageddon: Nuclear Weapons Science After the Cold War.  Based on many years of fieldwork, the book reconstructs the U.S. decision to give up nuclear testing after the cold war and analyzes the ways in which the community of nuclear weapons scientists has reinvented itself in the absence of its core practice for the production of nuclear knowledge.  Dr. Gusterson is also concluding a stint of research on the polygraph, for which he interviewed polygraphers and their subjects and undertook training as a polygrapher.