Rochlin's research interests focus on "understanding and analyzing the interplay of scientific and technological factors with social and political development at both national and international levels including: (a) the politics and political economy of energy, the environment, and natural resource use; (b) theoretical and empirical inquiry into the properties, development, and behavior of large-scale socio-technical systems; and (c) studies of the modern military, arms control and international security."  Among the courses he teaches is one devoted to "The Political Economy of Energy and the Environment." 

Rochlin is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, Bellagio, Italy (1981); a Guggenheim Fellow (1986-87); and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Individual Fellow for Research and Writing in International Security (1987-88).

This is the eleventh in a series of Tidbits of the Week devoted to the authors whose works appear in the just-published 9th edition of Technology and the Future.  Last week's Tidbit profiled Paul Duguid.  The last Tidbit in this series, which will appear next week, will profile President George W. Bush from the perspective of science and technology.  President Bush's speech to the nation on stem cell research is included in the book.

Biography of Gene Rochlin on the site of the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Gene Rochlin's home page at the University of California, Berkeley.  Includes information about his courses, as well as more detailed information on his research and publications.

Full text of Gene Rochlin's book, Trapped in the Net (an excerpt from which appears in the 9th edition of Technology and the Future).  Also see the description and order page at Princeton University Press web site.

"Computer Dependency," an interview with Gene Rochlin on Internet on the Air (in RealAudio).  Interviewed by Todd Mundt; aired February 21 & 22, 1998.

"Reliable Organizations in an Age of Advanced Information Technology," a two-day course taught by Gene Rochlin at the Swedish Centre for Human Factors in Aviation, a network organization with its service unit at Linköping Institute of Technology.

Review of Trapped in the Net by Bayla Singer in Technology and Culture, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1999). Unlike many other reviewers, Singer is less than 100 percent sold on the book.

Review of Trapped in the Net, by Jeremy J. Shapiro in WebNet Journal (April-June 1999).

More reviews of Trapped in the Net, collected on HallInternet.com.

Robert Sanders, "What Can Happen When Computers Take Over,"  The Berkeleyan (campus
newspaper), January 28, 1998. Subtitled:  "Rochlin Book Warns of the Dangers of Relying on High-Tech Systems."

Andrew Leonard, "Little Crashes Lead to Big Crashes," Salon 21st (a feature of Salon magazine), August 21, 1997.  "Today's computer networks allow less and less 'slack' for error. Yet we depend on them more and more to run our banks and airlines, our governments and wars. According to the author of Trapped in the Net, we're asking for trouble."