Başak Saraç-Lesavre is a Beam fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology. Her research is situated at the interface of Science and Technology Studies, nuclear anthropology, discard studies, and economic sociology. She engages with remains, values, intergenerational responsibilities, and time. Her current ethnographic research focuses on the development of robotic technologies to handle the remains of the nuclear age. Her book project, Nuclear Remains: On Temporality, Valuation, and Responsibility, examines the ways in which an advanced industrial society has been grappling with nuclear waste and interrogates what this case tells us about our current (in)capacities to deal with such long-lasting responsibilities.

Başak received her MRes from the LSE, and PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP). During her fieldwork, she held a visiting fellowship position in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. She held a temporary assistant professorship position at the ENSMP, where she examined European nuclear stress-tests. In 2017, she joined Virginia Tech’s Department of Science, Technology, and Society, and contributed to a National Science Foundation-funded research project on post-Fukushima nuclear emergency response initiatives. Başak’s research has been funded by the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Fulbright Commission, LSE, and Paris Sciences et Lettres.