My research interest is the history of technology, and recently I just completed a study on international knowledge exchange. The technology itself is not something evolves on its own but highly related to a country's demographics. The percetage of educated people in a population, gender distribution and all these characteristics have its impact of state policymaking and therefore evoke a specific kind of technology to forecast and manage the population. Therefore, one may say that demography inlfuences the trajectory of technology, especially those for population forecast and control.
John Hanzhang YE is currently a PhD student at the history of science, technology and medicine program. He was trained in mathematics and then sociology before coming to the University of Minnesota. He is interested in the history of computing and the relationship between capitalism and technology. He is also interested in the history of modern China. He recently published an article on the organization of mathematicians in the early 1950s China.