October 15, 2026
Conferences
Graduate student Amanda Vilchez, with Yael Silver and Professor Bruce Lewenstein, presented “Trust, Relational Learning, and Boundary-Work in Citizen Science across Knowledge Systems” at the PCST symposium Building Knowledge Together: Citizen Science, Communication and Trust.
This study aims to reconceptualize trust in the “other” not merely as openness or acceptance of other knowledge systems (in this case, of Traditional Ecological Knowledge holders toward Western science) but as the freedom to make visible the dynamics and boundaries of one’s own knowledge system, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of its distinctions. To exemplify these arguments, the authors examined a case study: a collaboration in Peru between farmers in the Sacred Valley of the Incas (Cusco) and a transdisciplinary group of scientists investigating the use of bat guano as a traditional fertilizer in maize cultivation.
Events
On October 23, please join Assistant Professor Wunpini Mohammed for “Author Meets Critics” a talk about her book Media, Culture, and Decolonization: Re-righting the Subaltern Histories of Ghana. Wunpini will be in conversation with Comm graduate student Jackline Kemigisa and Rejoice Abutsa (grad student, Performing and Media Arts) at the North American launch of her book. The event takes place at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, at 4:30 pm.
Lectures
On October 7, Professor danah boyd presented a Presidential Plenary at the Society for Social Studies of Science conference.
On September 15, Assistant Professor Wunpini Mohammed presented a talk on her book Media, Culture and Decolonization: Re-righting the Subaltern Histories of Ghana at the University of Iowa Communication and Media Colloquium.
Media Mentions
In a conversation featured on Cornell’s Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures page, Associate Professor Neil Lewis, Jr., and Assistant Professor Wunpini Mohammed discussed her new book, focusing on the broad question: What role does media play in (de)colonization?
Publications
Associate Professor Drew Margolin and M. van der Velden, September 2026, “Post Hoc Illusion—How the Knew-It-All-Along Effect Undermines Trust,” Communication Theory.
The post hoc illusion is a mistaken belief about what others knew in the past. It arises when stakeholders, who have entrusted power to the deciders, infer that the decider “overlooked” facts that were “obvious” and should have been consulted. The authors show how this effect is a logical consequence of constraints in human abductive processes—the manner in which human minds create and evaluate causal explanations.
J. Pacheco, J.J. Pellón, J. L. Mena, graduate student Amanda Vilchez et al., October 2026, “Integrating Bioacoustics and Community Science for Advancing Bat Research: Insights From Urban–Rural Landscapes across Regions in Peru,” Biotropica.
This study presents the first integration of community science and passive acoustic monitoring for bat research in the Neotropics. Using AudioMoth recorders, volunteers across urban and rural areas of the Peruvian Amazon, Andes, and Coast selected 140 sampling sites, monitored between 2020 and 2024. By comparing models developed through traditional expert-led approaches with those generated through participatory methods, the authors’ findings demonstrate that community science combined with passive acoustic monitoring can generate comparable ecological data, particularly relevant in socially and logistically challenging Latin American contexts where conservation efforts face significant barriers.
