Salem Elzway

Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

Salem Elzway is a historian of the twentieth century United States whose work engages the intersections of labor, politics, and Science, Technology, and Society (STS). His in-progress book will provide the first scholarly history of the industrial robot, and traces the entanglements of automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and the political economy of American industrial policy during and after the Cold War. Three commissioned pieces from Salem's broader research program have recently been published: first, in a special issue of Osiris on the history of algorithms; second, in a co-authored essay for a special issue of Labor: Studies in Working-Class History on the intersections of labor and science; and third, in a tri-authored piece for the American Historical Review on new approaches to the American welfare state. He has provided background and analysis on the history and contemporary politics of automation for Fortune and the Wall Street Journal, and has also been featured on KPFA's nationally broadcast radio program Against the Grain. Salem’s work has been supported by the Charles Babbage Institute, the Hagley Museum and Library, the Jefferson Scholars Foundation at the University of Virginia, and the Smithsonian Institution. He has a BSBA in Finance from the University of Nebraska and received a PhD in History from the University of Michigan.