Alice Steele, Author at Viterbi Conversations in Ethics

Spring 2026 Volume 9 Issue 1

The Ethics of Period Tracking Apps

In a time of transitioning out of male-centric health research, period-tracking apps have great potential for advancing women’s healthcare. They can provide users with better health literacy, informing them of important patterns in their bodies. However, instead of living up to their potential, period trackers are causing great harm. Engineers have a responsibility to take accountability for the impact their technology has on women’s lives; they have a responsibility to create a better version of these apps that can truly benefit women’s healthcare.

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

Building an Ethical Data Center

Alice Steele March 15, 2026 AI Artificial Intelligence data centers Noise Pollution Water Scarcity

A surge in data center construction is raising concerns about the environmental and social impact of these facilities on neighboring communities. However, not all data centers are built the same, and there is an opportunity for improvement in how data centers are constructed and the resulting effect they have on the people they surround.

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

Spain Makes a Stand Against Social Media Platforms’ Disappointing Ethical Failures

Alice Steele February 10, 2026 body image childhood development Depression Meta Social Media youtube

Spain has joined a growing number of countries banning social media for users under 16. These bans reflect a global concern over these platforms’ documented, pervasive threats to children’s mental health and safety, which companies have responded to with largely cosmetic changes that fail to meaningfully protect minors. This trend ultimately signals a disappointing and widespread failure to uphold ethical standards in the industry.

Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

Selling the Problem, Selling the Cure: Bounce-Back Culture and its Toll on New Mothers

Alice Steele December 8, 2025 maternal health Mental Health postpartum postpartum depression predatory marketing women’s health

Advancements in the technologies and support available to postpartum women are essential, and many new technologies designed for mothers are promising to hasten their physical and emotional recovery. While this may seem a noble goal on the surface, many products marketed to postpartum women are hindering rather than helping their recovery by feeding into an increasingly twisted societal ideal of what postpartum recovery should look like. It is the ethical imperative of engineers to consider how their technologies are contributing to the dangerous “bounce-back” culture directed at postpartum women and the maternal mental health crisis.

Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

The Ethics of Humanoid Robots

Alice Steele October 26, 2025 AI AI companions childcare humanoid robots Optimus robots

Tesla’s vision for its Optimus humanoid robot fleet raises questions about the direction AI technology and robotics are taking. This is especially important to consider as people increasingly project human qualities – such as empathy – onto technology designed to mimic humanity.

Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

An Apple (Watch) a Day: Implications of Apple’s Latest Hypertension Detection Feature

Alice Steele September 28, 2025 Apple Apple Watch Healthcare hypertension smart devices wearables

Apple recently debuted its new hypertension detection system for Apple Watches Series 9 and newer. This feature promises to make blood pressure monitoring easier and more accessible for millions of people, which is especially important given how prevalent and underdiagnosed the condition is. However, for some individuals, the benefits of 24/7 hypertension monitoring may be overshadowed by anxieties caused by on-demand health data and the dangers of an increasing reliance on sometimes unreliable technology.

Podcast

Podcast Spring 2025 Spring 2025 VCE Podcast

Virtue Ethics: Cultivating Moral Character in a Modern World

VCE March 8, 2025

Hosted by Aryan Shah with guest Branden leong This podcast explores the role of virtue ethics in engineering, emphasizing how virtues like compassion, integrity, and…

Podcast Spring 2025 Spring 2025 VCE Podcast

AR/VR and how they shape the future of technology

VCE March 8, 2025

Hosted by Aryan Shah, Deep Shah, with guests “Greta Hoffmeister, Kariena Panpaliya, Dasean Volk, Hang Nguyen, Grace Eamer In this episode, the guests delve into…

Grand Challenges Special Issue

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

Redefining Societal Progress for Engineers

Natasha Singh March 29, 2023

Dr. Erin Cech’s critique of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges focuses heavily on the pitfalls of technological determinism. This paper supports Cech’s argument through a discussion of current examples of the consequences of technological determinism, such as the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, medication accessibility, and facial recognition technology. Though the consequences of a zealous engineering mentality are commonplace in our society, there are also current examples of tech companies neglecting to develop technology due to its possible negative consequences.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

How the Technical Sciences and the Social Sciences Should Go Hand-in-Hand

Charles Liu March 29, 2023

The fourteen Grand Challenges presented by the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) fail to involve ethics as a part of the solution to these issues. Traditionally, engineers have kept their work separate from its societal implications. Engineers and their non-technical counterparts have an obligation to view all technical solutions under the moral lens of ethicists and futurists. Going forward, engineers must be aware of their limits and work with experts outside of their fields to develop solutions that will be cognizant of society as a whole.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

The Lies We Tell to Inspire: Responding to the Engineering Double Standard

Shub Gaur March 29, 2023

The National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges are critiqued by Dr. Erin Cech for what she describes as a double standard in engineering. Though Cech rightly discusses a lack of accountability and acknowledgement within the profession, her argument lacks nuance. The Grand Challenges were ultimately a promotional tool meant to inspire the next generation of engineers, yet Cech holds them to a standard of being professional rules and guidelines. This paper will discuss the distinctions that Cech’s argument lacks, including placing an unreasonable amount of responsibility on engineers and overstating their influence.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

The Grand Challenges: Authorial Particularism and a Lost Opportunity for an Equitable Society

Huzaifa Aslam March 29, 2023

The fourteen Grand Challenges were developed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in an effort to expose future generations to the wide range of innovation and technology that they could one day take part in. As detailed by the Challenges’ creators, the list includes challenges that are most significant to our current world. Dr. Erin Cech’s critique of the Grand Challenges is that a lack of diversity in the panel of engineering experts led to a lack of oversight into issues that are actually pertinent to developing nations. Cech’s argument that the Grand Challenges are a missed opportunity for social justice holds validity, but her mischaracterization of the lack of diversity requires further consideration.

Weekly News Profile

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

Building an Ethical Data Center

Alice Steele March 15, 2026

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

The Unsinkable Burden: University of Rochester Researchers Engineer “Unsinkable” Aluminum

Mo Jiang March 9, 2026

University of Rochester researchers have developed superhydrophobic aluminum tubes that remain unsinkable and corrosion-resistant. While this technology benefits the maritime and energy industries economically, its durability creates an environmental conflict between long-term product lifespans and the risk of permanent ocean pollution. Integrating these “incorruptible” materials into the global market will require ethical and regulatory considerations to address issues of intergenerational justice and waste management.

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

The Gut Microbiome Is the New Genome — Yet the Regulations to Protect It Haven’t Caught Up

Mo Jiang March 1, 2026

The University of Maryland has developed “Smart Underwear” for the Human Flatus Atlas study to track digestive signals and microbiome activity in real-time. Although the device advances personalized medicine, it discloses private information that can uniquely identify 80% of people. The current state of microbiome research is also plagued by underrepresentation and algorithmic bias. Since microbiome information is not yet protected under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), immediate regulatory changes are needed to prevent its misuse.

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

DRAM Deficit: Global Decline in Memory Chip Supply Worsens

Mary Karapetyan February 23, 2026

Memory is a core component of all computing systems. Tech leaders are now warning of a potential global crisis in memory chip production, largely due to the accelerated growth of Artificial Intelligence and the data centers that support it. The pressures are estimated to persist over the next couple of years at least, signaling difficult times ahead for consumers and electronics manufacturers alike.

Featured Spring 2026 Weekly News Profile

Spain Makes a Stand Against Social Media Platforms’ Disappointing Ethical Failures

Alice Steele February 10, 2026