Science History Institute Welcomes 2023–2024 Beckman Center Fellows

The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Science History Institute is pleased to announce our 2023–2024 class of fellows. Hailing from a diverse list of local, national, and international institutions, our incoming fellows will use our collections to study a wide range of topics in the history and social studies of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences.

In addition to our postdoctoral, dissertation, distinguished, and short-term research fellows, the Beckman Center will once again welcome a cohort of two-year curatorial fellows who will assist with ongoing projects as staff members, expanding and exploring interpretive programs for our library and museum.

The Science History Institute is home to the largest private fellowship program in the historical study of science, medicine, and technology in the United States. Researchers travel from all over the world to use our collections and to take part in a vibrant scholarly community.

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Curatorial Fellows

• Judith Kaplan (Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine)
  Focus: Scientific Biographies

• Sherri Sheu (University of Colorado Boulder)
  Focus: Museum Interpretation Projects
   
• Shuko Tamao (University at Buffalo)
  Focus: Oral History Projects

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

• Claire Litt (Queen’s University)
  Real and Synthetic Stones as Materia Medica in Late Renaissance Medical Alchemy

Dissertation Fellow

• Taylor Dysart (University of Pennsylvania)
  The Scientist and the Jaguar: Wondrous Plants and the Politics of Knowledge in the Amazon

Cain Conference Fellow

• Sibrina N. Collins (Lawrence Technological University)

Senior Fellows

• Max Cavitch (University of Pennsylvania)
  Ashes: A History of Thought and Substance

• Sean Silver (Rutgers University)
  The Motley Emblem: Tristram Shandy and the Empire of Color

• Kara W. Swanson (Northeastern University)
  Inventing Citizens: Race, Gender, and the U.S. Patent System

Short-Term Fellows

• Arnav Bhattacharya (University of Pennsylvania)
  Rejuvenating and Transforming the Body and the Nation: Overlapping Histories of Sexology and Endocrinology in Early to Mid-20th Century India

• Edward Chappell (University of Pennsylvania)
  The Secrets of Wine: Winemaking Manuals, Books of Secrets, and Knowledge in Early Modern Italy

• Nikhil Joseph Dharan (University of Pennsylvania)
  Colonial Alchemies: Chemical Knowledge and Industrialization in South India, 1914–1935

• Susannah Glickman (Stony Brook University)
  Histories, Tech, and a New Central Planning

• Thea Goldring (Harvard University)
  Drawing Nature: Carême de Fécamp and Scientific Drawing in the Long 18th Century

• Andrew Kettler (University of South Carolina-Palmetto College)
  The Miasmic Theft of Modernity: A Global History of Sulfur

• Delanie Linden (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  Other Colors: Chroma, Chemistry, and the Orient in 19th-Century French Painting

• Jennifer Lupu (Northwestern University)
  Consuming Care: Pharmaceuticals Use and Access in Washington, D.C., 1850-1920

• Amanda J. Nichols (Oklahoma Christian University)
  The Role of Women Chemists in the Development of Molecular Structure Theory

• Sean O’Neil (Hong Kong Baptist University)
  The Art of Signs: Symbolic Notation and Visual Thinking in Early Modern Europe

• Jim Wynter Porter (Independent Scholar)
  “Race,” “Ability,” and Chemistry Curriculum Development in the Mid-20th Century United States

• Claire Sabel (University of Pennsylvania)
  Rare Earth: Gemstones, Geohistories, and Commercial Geography Between Southeast Asia and Europe, c. 1600–1750

• Julian Silverman (Fashion Institute of Technology)
  The Material History of Soap: Crafting a Scientific Demonstration for Public Audiences

• Emmet von Stackelberg (Harvard University)
  Seeing through Silver: How Chemists and Capital Made Images Move

• Peter Vale (University of California at Berkeley)
  “Child of Copper”: Mining, Capitalism, and State-Making in Central Africa

Fellows in Residence

• George Borg (National Science Foundation) | SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  The Instrumental Revolution in Geochemistry

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Featured image: Fellows conduct research in the Institute’s Othmer Library. Science History Institute/Emma Gothelf.