In the past few weeks of beginning my first Laidlaw summer, as I've dug deeper into the source material for my research on the role of technology in shaping scientific practices, I've tried to consult different institutes, besides libraries, that might house information for my project. One institution was the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC, which had valuable historical information about the period and important actors that I'm studying.

What I found most interesting about the Museum, though, was not just that information, but studying the genesis, history, and affiliations of the MoMI that I happened upon while trying to collect more resources from their collections. One of their projects that is related to my research topic is their Science & Film initiative, which popularizes literature on the intersection between science and media. But through more digging, a lot more about their relationship with the Sloan Foundation, which funds Science & Film, can be uncovered—how do the motivations of the Foundation, founded by business magnate Alfred Sloan, affect the work done by the initiative? What is the nature of the information being shared to the public by a well-regarded institute of the MoMI? 

My faculty mentor, Professor Caglioti in Barnard's history department, was very instructive in guiding me to question my sources, the power structures that shape the information we have access to, and how that plays into the historical narratives that we are constructing—even if some of this questioning may fall outside of the scope of the research topic—I think this methodology can be helpful to all of us as Laidlaw scholars in being critically engaged with our work.