# Przemyslaw Matt Lukacz ![Lukacz smiling long blonde hair black shirt](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2025-10/Lukacz.jpg?h=c77fe88c&itok=dPfPP_pB) email *Research Interests: Environmental history, ethics and politics; science and international affairs; global history; critical histories of artificial intelligence; history of technology; philosophy of science; science and higher education in America; intellectual history; interdisciplinarity.* Matt Lukacz is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science at Harvard University (with a secondary field in Science, Technology, and Society) and an affiliate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. His dissertation, *“The Divided Seas: Science, Algorithms, and Democratic Participation in the Global History of Marine Spatial Planning,”* traces how algorithmic tools reshaped the politics of environmental governance and democratic participation in marine conservation. The dissertation focuses on case studies from Australia, the United States (specifically California), and the European Union. The project brings together environmental history, the global history of science, and critical studies of technology to understand how ideals of participation and transparency became entangled with the rise of algorithmic decision-making in biodiversity protection. Matt’s secondary interests include the intersection of the histories of social sciences and universities. Matt’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Mahindra Humanities Center, and Salata Center for the Environment, among others. **Publications:** Lukacz, P.M. (forthcoming). Social Construction of Algorithmic Success: Science, Politics, and Transparency in Marine Conservation Planning. *History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences*. Special Issue on Values at Sea: Marine Science Studies Meets Marine Sciences. Lukacz, P.M. (2024). Imaginaries of Democratization and the Value of Open Environmental Data: Analysis of Microsoft’s Planetary Computer, *Big Data and Society*, Vol. 11 No. 2. Lukacz, P.M. (2024). Can A.I. Be Trusted to Predict Weather? Ethics of Design and Anxieties About Automation at the National A.I. Institute for Research on Trustworthy A.I. in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography, *Science & Technology Studies, the Official Journal of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology.* Vol. 37 No. 4. Lukacz, P.M. (2022). Data Capitalism, Microsoft’s Planetary Computer, and the Biodiversity Informatics Community. In: Smits, M. (eds.) *Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future.* Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series, vol 13192. Springer, Cham. \[[link](https://www.academia.edu/75568863/Data_Capitalism_Microsoft_s_Planetary_Computer_and_the_Biodiversity_Informatics_Community)\] **Presentations** 2024, “Intellectual Diversity and Multidisciplinarity at the University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought in the 1960s,” *Harvard Radcliffe Institute 25th Anniversary Celebration*, Engaged Student Research Showcase, Cambridge. 2023, “Intertwined Histories of Algorithmic and Technocratic Decision Making in Conservation Biology: A Threat of Environmental Algocracy or a Path Towards Democratic Participation?” *The 58th Joint Atlantic Seminar in the History of Biology*, the American Philosophical Society, in collaboration with the Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 2023, “Environmental Technocracy or Science-Based Policy? History of Debates About Algorithmic Decision Making in Conservation Biology,” *Data (Re)Makes the World Conference,* Information Society Project, Yale Law School, New Haven. 2022, “Can Anthropology Both ‘Critique and Contribute’ to the Design of Artificial Intelligence? Reimagining Theories of Quantification in Political Ecology and Ethnography of Conservation Biology.” Paper presented at the *Anthropology, AI, and the Future of Human Society Conference* organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute, UK. 2021, “AI against Extinction: Towards the History of Conservation by Algorithm.” Paper presented at *the Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Genealogy of Power Winter Symposium*, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UKl. **Previous Degrees:** B.A., Anthropology and Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago; M.A., Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago; M.A., Sociocultural Anthropology, Columbia University - ## People Categories [Graduate Students](/graduate_students) - ## Graduate Research Interests [Environmental History](/graduate-research-interests/environmental-history) [History of Environmental Sciences](/graduate-research-interests/history-environmental-sciences) [History of Technology](/graduate-research-interests/history-technology) [History of the Human Sciences](/graduate-research-interests/history-human-sciences) [Intellectual History](/graduate-research-interests/intellectual-history) [Oceans History](/graduate-research-interests/oceans-history) [Science Policy](/graduate-research-interests/science-policy) [Social Theory](/graduate-research-interests/social-theory)