The 2026 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) will beJune 9-11, 2026 at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the greater Washington, DC area, USA.

The mission of fPET is to encourage reflection on engineering, engineers, and technology; and to build bridges between existing organizations of philosophers, engineers and scholars in related fields.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Sabine Ammon (Technical University Berlin)
Zoe Szajnfarber (George Washington University)
Matthew Wisnioski (Virginia Tech)

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS:

500 word (max) abstract deadline is January 25th, 2026, with acceptances in mid-February. Tracks include:

· Track 1: Philosophy of engineering and technology,

· Track 2: Ethics relating to engineering and technology,

· Track 3: Interdisciplinary reflections on engineering practice;

· Track 4: Reflections on Hardware and ‘Materiality’ in Engineering

A small number of special sessions are also being solicited to explore collaboration approaches and insights across engineers, philosophers and other related disciplines.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the program committee, listed below, with leadership from the conference and program co-chairs. Abstracts accepted for presentation will be published on the fPET website.

Poster submissions are also welcome; we will ensure dedicated conference attention to posters and view it as an excellent opportunity to share work. There will not be panel proposals.

Submissions to fPET will be made at this website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/fPET2026. You must create an account there to submit an abstract. The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.

Please see the rest of the site for more information, including how to 'Join the Conversation!, which has a listserve. Questions can be sent to fPET2026@gmail.com.

For more on fPET’s history since 2007, go to the fPET community page. To download the Call for Abstracts as a PDF, click here.

About fPET 2026:

fPET 2026 conference co-chairs: Zachary G. Pirtle and Guru Madhavan.

Program Co-chairs; Rider Foley (Univ. Virginia); Daria Jadreškic (University of Innsbruck); Nicole F. Mogul (UMCP); Tonatuih Rodriguez-Nikl (Cal State LA); Bono Shih (Penn State)

fPET 2026 Program Committee: Kirk Besmer (Gonzaga); Rockwell F. Clancy (Virginia Tech); Claudia Eckert (Open Univ.); Rémi Gandoin (C2Wind); Dennis Gedge (Consulting Engineer); Glen Miller (Texas A&M); Michael Poznic (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology); Andrés Santa María (Univ. Técnica Federico Santa María); Édison Renato Pereira da Silva (Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro); Viola Schiaffonati (Politecnico di Milano); Ashley Shew (Virginia Tech); Martin Stacey (De Monfort Univ.); Florence Tan (retired NASA); Pieter Vermaas (TU Delft)

Overall fPET Steering Committee: Co-chair: Viola Schiaffonati (Politecnico di Milano); Co-chair: Zachary G. Pirtle; Sabine Ammon (TU Berlin); Neelke Doorn (TU Delft); Richard Evans (Cornell University); Albrecht Fritzsche (IEDC - Bled School of Management); David E. Goldberg (ThreeJoy Associates, Inc.); Rafaela Hillerbrand (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology); Guru Madhavan (NAE); Natasha McCarthy (Royal Society); Diane Michelfelder (Macalester College); Carl Mitcham (Colorado School of Mines); Byron Newberry (Baylor University); Joe Pitt (Virginia Tech); Michael Poznic (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology); Ibo van de Poel (TU Delft); Andrés Santa-María (Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María); Ashley Shew (Virginia Tech)

fPET 2026 is hosted by David Tomblin, Director of the Science, Technology and Society Programs in the A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park. The STS work at University of Maryland makes it an exciting venue to host fPET, as they’ve already been active in bringing engineers and social scientists together. More info here.

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