Ross Bassett
Bio
I received my undergraduate education from the University of Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. I then worked at IBM, designing semiconductor memory systems for large computers. I eventually found myself interested in a number of questions about the technologies I was working on which could only be answered by a historical perspective. I left IBM, to study history, earning a masters degree at Cornell and then a doctorate at Princeton. I have been particularly interested in the movement of technologies and engineers across a variety of boundaries. My first book, a history of the MOS transistor, the dominant semiconductor of our time, examined how it moved from East Coast research labs to Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Intel, and subsequently entered every area of American life. My second book was a study of Indian graduates of MIT, showing the central role that MIT played in the technological imagination of a group of English language educated Indians. I am currently working on a project on French engineers and their learning and use of the English language in the 20th century.
One of my other interests is the bicycle as part of an urban transportation system. I teach a course–STS320, “Cycling Cities,”–looking at why urban Americans do not bicycle to the degree that urban Europeans do. I recently completed a bicycle trip from Paris to Prague to gather materials in support of this course.
I am currently the director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars at NC State, which allows engineering students to simultaneously pursue a degree in humanities or social sciences.
Office Hours
- Tue: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
- Thu: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Research Publications
The Technological Indian (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016)