Graduate Students
First Year
Iain Watts [email] (B.A. Hons, CASM, University of Cambridge; M.Sc., Imperial College and University College London) Iain’s main area of interest is in the sciences in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly in scientific life in London, the history of electricity and chemistry, and the relationship between science and literature. He expects to concentrate on ‘Galvanism’ in Britain during this period, especially relating to public scientific lectures and entertainments, scientific writing in general periodicals, and the connections between science and the Romantic movement.
Adrian Young [email] (B.A. The Ohio State University) Adrian is interested in the relationship between science, exploration, and empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, he intends to focus his research on the role of physical anthropology within the British imperial enterprise. His undergraduate thesis examined the development of paleoanthropology in the European colonial periphery.
Second Year
Henry Cowles [email] (B.A. Harvard University) Henry is interested in the transatlantic history of ideas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, he hopes to explore the relationship between certain schools of thought (ecology, evolutionary biology, pragmatism) and ideas about the human/nature boundary in Progressive Anglo-American thought.
Daniel Trambaiolo [email] (BA/BSc, University of Sydney; PhD, University of Cambridge) Daniel's main research area is the development of new traditions in Chinese medicine during the Song-Jin-Yuan-Ming transition (c. 1100-1400). He is also interested in Korean and Japanese uses of Chinese medical ideas and practices, and in the history of biochemistry in twentieth-century China, including the crystallographic structure determination of insulin during the Cultural Revolution.
Third Year
William Deringer [email] ( B.A. Harvard University ) Willy's interests are in the history of science and social order, particularly in the ways methods of scientific investigation (e.g., quantification, experimentation, modeling) have been adopted in attempts to understand and regulate society, politics, and especially the economy. His particular research interests lie in the history of economic thought and other "social sciences" (including statistics and geography) in early modern England and the Atlantic World, as well as in the history of modern finance.
Victoria Lee [email] (BA Hons MA, University of Cambridge, MSc Imperial College London) Victoria’s research centers on the history of microbiology and industrial research in Japan in the early twentieth century. In particular she focuses on connections between science and industry and the nature of Japan’s position as an emerging power in science in the period. She is currently studying Japanese full-time at the Inter-University Center, Yokohama.
Margaret Schotte [email] ( B.A. Harvard University , M.A. University of Toronto) Margaret is interested in the intersection of history of technology and print culture in the early modern transatlantic world. Formerly a rare book cataloguer in New York , NY , she hopes to undertake a comparative study of 17th-century French navigation manuals.
Fourth Year
Howard Chiang [email] (B.A., B.S. Southern California; M.A. Columbia) Howard's research focuses on the history and material epistemology of the modern life sciences and biomedicine, with an emphasis on the global dynamics of gender and sexuality. His dissertation explores the changing meanings of sex, gender, and sexuality in modern East Asia by historicizing the practical and conceptual dimensions of sex-alteration in 20th-century China . He is a member of the program committee for the Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Medicine, and he maintains his own web site at http://www.howardhchiang.com.
Yulia Frumer [email] (B.A., M.A. Tel Aviv University ) Yulia’s research deals with scientific developments in 18th century Japan, focusing on the relation between the material and conceptual aspects of Edo period scientific practice. In her dissertation she describes the integration of mechanical clocks into Edo culture, and especially their role in the astronomical practice of the late 18th to early 19th century Japan.
Benjamin Gross [email] ( B.A. Yale University ) Ben's current research focuses upon the development of American science museums during the twentieth century. He is also interested in the history of the physical sciences and the history of astronomy.
Robert MacGregor [email] (B.A., B.S. Rice University ) Robert's research centers on Soviet cosmonautics in the first half of the twentieth century and the early Soviet and American space programs. Robert is also concerned with the rise of science fiction as a literary genre and its relation to early space pioneers and science in the Cold War.
Christopher McDonald [email] ( B.A. Rice University ; M.S. Purdue University ) Chris's research interests lie in 20th century science and technology, specifically computer technology. He intends to study the development of computers as mathematical, technological, and social artifacts. He is also interested in science and technology in the context of the Cold War.
Fifth Year
Catherine Abou-Nemeh [email] ( B.S. Northwestern University ) Catherine focuses on early modern Europe ( Italy , the Netherlands ). Her interests pertain largely to the history of astronomy, artisanal theory and practice, and the development of optics and lens-grinding techniques as well as to the history of medicine, and of anatomy in particular. Her very tentative dissertation title is "Hartsoeker's Homunculus: Optics, Politics, and Cartesian Mechanical Philosophy in the Dutch Republic ."
Melinda Baldwin [email] (B.S. Davidson College, MPhil Cambridge University) Lindy is writing her dissertation on the early history of the journal Nature, focusing on the journal's nineteenth-century rise to prominence, its treatment of scientific controversies such as spiritualism and radioactivity, and its impact on scientific internationalism in the twentieth century. Her broader interests include gender and science, the history of chemistry, and the history of the forensic sciences.
Carolyn Eisert [email] ( B.A. Wesleyan University , Psychology and Studio Art) Carrie is studying the history of human sciences and medicine in twentieth century American culture, and is also interested in medical anthropology and gender studies. Her dissertation will explore the ways medical experts conceptualized users of oral contraceptives in the 1960's, and how these ideas informed Pill marketing, packaging, and responses from patients.
Nam Ha [email] ( B.A. Rice University ) Nathan studies the history of the life sciences and biomedicine, with a focus on genetics. He is currently writing a dissertation on the history of genetics and theories of sex determination in the twentieth century. His broader interests include gender and science, the history of sexuality, and American cultural history.
Aviva Rothman [email] ( B.A. Columbia University ) Aviva is writing a dissertation on the astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, in which she plans to consider Kepler as a member of multiple textual networks. She hopes to investigate more broadly questions of community and communication--scientific, philosophical, and theological--in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe.
ABD
Gail Schmitt [email] (A.B. Biology, Vassar College ) Gail's central interests are in history of twentieth-century plant biology, genetics, and cell biology, and history of women in science. I am also interested in the history of twentieth-century Europe.
Donna Sy [email] (B.A., B.S. Stanford University; M.A. Univ. California, Berkeley) Donna is interested in 17th-century European scientific and medical publishing, especially in the Elzevirs and their associates, the origins of the printed scientific/medical anthology, and associated processes of textual canonization in the early modern period.