An Interview with Prof. JEFFREY R. YOST

Abstract

CBI Director and Research Professor Jeffrey Yost, who previously served as CBI Associate Director, discusses his educational background and evolving early research interests from his BA at Macalester College through his MA and PhD at Case Western Reserve University in the History of Technology and Science. He discusses the history of the Babbage Institute and working with past Directors, and his strategic repositioning of the Institute to make it interdisciplinary computing and software studies under the new sub-title CBI for Computing, Information and Culture (rather than for the History of IT). He discusses how these changes permeated across the institute with major events “Just Code” and “Automation by Design,” Interfaces, and other projects and initiatives, including CBI Archives collection development focal points shifting more toward social and cultural context to computing. The interview was originally conducted and translated the interviewer for publication in the Zhineng Shehui Yanjiu [Journal of Intelligent Society] in Mandarin, volume three: issue two March 2024 pp 196-215. The English version has been donated to CBI for its collections.