My primary areas of research are the social, organizational, and cultural and intellectual history of computing and software. I am also a highly experienced science and technology oral history specialist.

I have deep interest in political economy of software and systems, and power imbalances with regard to race, class, gender, disability, and the environment. This was the impetus for my conceptualization of and co-organization (with Gerardo Con Diaz) of our Fall 2020 Symposium “Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Global Political Economy of IT.” 

In late 2025 we published (Yost and Con Diaz) Just Code: Power, Inequality and the Political Economy of IT from Johns Hopkins University Press in our new Studies in Computing and Culture Series.

I also do research on the history and sociology of cognitive science and Human-Computer Interaction, and the history and sociology of artificial intelligence--including pattern recognition, natural language processing, machine learning, expert systems, and LLM/generative AI. I am particularly interested in issues of privacy, energy/climate, and Big Data, and algorithmic biases and societal inequality, and just launched a new research project on the history of AI in medicine, focusing on SUMEX AIM at Stanford University.  I study some similar social justice issues with blockchain technology (see below). This includes labor and automation, risks, ethics, and the potentiality for new forms of governance and collaborations with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

In February 2023 we held a major symposium entitled "Automation by Design: Politics, Culture, and Landscape in an Age of Machine That Learn." I co-led this event with colleagues G. Con Diaz, Colette Perold, and Honghong Tinn. Read more on Automation by Design here.  In late December 2025, Colette Perold, Con Diaz, and I published a Guest Edited Special Issue "Automation by Design: Power, Culture and Landscape in an Age of Machines That Learn" in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

I have published nine books, including Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry (MIT Press, 2017), FastLane: Managing Science in the Internet World (w/ Thomas Misa; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 3^rd Edition and 4th Edition (w/ Martin Campbell-Kelly, William Aspray, and Nathan Ensmenger; Westview, 2014 for the 3rd Ed.; the same with Gerardo Con Diaz and Honghong Tinn, with Routledge as the publisher for the 4th Ed.). I have also published many dozens of articles and book chapters.

I recently served on a National Academy of Engineering expert committee for history of engineering, 2021-2024. We held a major symposium and published two National Academies Press books. 

On a continuing basis, since 2023, I participate as a member of Academic Alliance for AI Policy, a forum for academics to share ideas and perspectives with US Congresspeople on the opportunities, and social and environmental risks and challenges, with artificial intelligence. In 2023 I did an American Historical Association Congressional Briefing on AI on Capitol Hill and have done other briefings on AI for senior US Senate staffers.

On the editorial front, I am co-editor (w/ G. Con Diaz) on a Johns Hopkins University Press book series, Studies in Computing and Culture and Culture. I also co-edit an essays journals (w/ Amanda Wick) Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture. 

I am the PI on a 2022-2025 project for the National Science Foundation (NSF) entitled “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes and Possibilities in Security and Privacy (co-PI is G. Con Diaz). I have been very active in sponsored research throughout my career and have been an investigator on more than a half dozen sponsored research projects, mostly for the National Science Foundation, but also for the Department of Energy, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, IBM, and the Association for Computing Machinery. Cumulative I have led/co-led more than $2,300,000 in projects as an investigator.

In addition to my research, I am the author of the critical inquiry blog Blockchain and Society, which seeks to promote blockchain history and sociology. It is both a blog and a resources site with annotated bibliographies and blockchain and cryptocurrency historical timelines.

I serve on the journal editorial boards of Technology and Culture; IEEE Annals of the History of Computing; and Information and Culture.

Books

Yost, Jeffrey R. and Gerardo Con Diaz, eds. (2025). Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Political Economy of IT (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Campbell-Kelly, Martin; William Aspray; Jeffrey R. Yost; Honghong Tinn; Gerardo Con Diaz, and Nathan Ensmenger. Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 4th Edition (2023), Routledge.

Yost, Jeffrey R. Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017).

Misa, Thomas J. and Jeffrey R. Yost. (2016). FastLane: Managing Science in the Internet World (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Campbell-Kelly, Martin; William Aspray; Nathan Ensmenger; and Jeffrey R. Yost. Computer: A History of the Information Machine, Third Edition (Westview Press, 2014).

Yost, Jeffrey R. The IBM Century (IEEE Computer Society Press, 2011).

Yost, Jeffrey R. The Computer Industry (Greenwood Press, 2005).

Yost, Jeffrey R. Bibliographic Guide to Resources in the History of Scientific Computing, 1945-1975 (Greenwood Press, 2002).

Selected Publications

Yost, Jeffrey R. "Machine Learning." (2026, through review, forthcoming).  In Rayvon Fouche, ed. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Studies (Oxford University Press). [11K-word article on history of Machine Learning.]

Perold, Colette; Jeffrey R. Yost; and Gerardo Con Diaz (Oct.-Dec. 2025). Guest Editors, special issue "Automation by Design: Politics, Culture and Landscape in an Age of Machines That Learn." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. These are revised papers of a CBI 2023 Symposium I co-designed and co-led.

Yost, Jeffrey R. (March 2021). “Of Mice and Mentalité: PARC Ways to Exploring HCI, AI, Augmentation and Symbiosis, and Categorization and Control". Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture Vol. 2, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, 12-26.

Yost, Jeffrey R. (May 2020). “Where Dinosaurs Roam and Programmers Play: Reflections on Infrastructure, Maintenance, and Inequality.” Interfaces: Essays and Reviews on Computing and Culture Vol. 1, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, 1 - 8.

Yost, Jeffrey R. Guest editor, two special issues of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing on the “History of Computer Security.” These are revised papers of an NSF-funded computer security history workshop I co-designed and co-led in July 2014. One issue was April-May 2015, the second October-December 2016.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “The March of IDES: The Advent and Early History of the Intrusion Detection Expert Systems.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 38:4 (October-December 2016): 42-54.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “The Origin and Early History of the Computer Security Software Industry.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 32:7 (April-June 2015): 46-58.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Appropriation and Independence: BTM, Burroughs, and IBM at the Advent of the Computer Industry.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 35:4 (October-December 2013): 5-17.

Little, Rachel D.; Cecilia D. Williams; and Jeffrey R. Yost. “Airline Travel: A History of Information-Seeking Behavior by Leisure and Business Passengers.”  In William Aspray and Barbara M. Hayes, eds. Everyday Information: The Evolution of Information Seeking in America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011): 121-156.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “History of Computing Technology.” Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (UNESCO, EOLSS Publishers, 2011). [28,000 word history and historiographical article available at www.eolss.net]

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Materiel Command and the Materiality of Commands: An Historical Examination of the US Air Force, Control Data Corporation, and the Advanced Logistics System.” In Arthur Tatnall, ed. History of Computing: Lessons from the Past (Springer, 2010): 89-100.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Programming Enterprise: Women Entrepreneurs in Software and Computer Services.” In Thomas J. Misa, ed. Gender Codes: Why Women Are Leaving Computing (New York: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society, 2010): 229-250.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Manufacturing Mainframes: Component Fabrication and Component Procurement at IBM and Sperry Univac, 1960-1975” History and Technology 25:3 (September 2009): 219-237.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Internet Challenges for Non-Media Industries, Firms, and Workers: Travel Agencies, Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Personal Computer Manufacturers, and IT Services Professionals”. In William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, eds., The Internet and American Business (MIT Press, 2008): 315-350.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “History of Computer Security Standards.” In Karl de Leuuw, ed., History of Information Security (Elsevier Science, 2007): 595-621.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Maximization and Marginalization: A Brief Examination of the History and Historiography of the U.S. Computer Services Industry.” Entreprises et Histoire 40 (November 2005): 87-101.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Computers and the Internet: Braiding Irony, Paradox, and Possibility.” in Carroll Pursell, ed. Companion to American Technology (Blackwell Publishers, 2005): 340-360.

Yost, Jeffrey R. “Reprogramming the Hippocratic Oath: The Early History of Medical Informatics and Privacy.” The History and Heritage of Scientific and Technological Information Systems (New Medford, New Jersey: Information Today for Chemical Heritage Foundation and American Society of Information Science, 2004): 46-55.

Pruitt, Bettye H. with the assistance of Jeffrey R. Yost. Timken: From Missouri to Mars--A Century of Leadership in Manufacturing (Harvard Business School Press, 1998).