Current Fellows

The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Science History Institute is pleased to announce our 2022–2023 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, this year’s class also includes a cohort of two-year curatorial fellows, the first of its kind at the Institute. Scholars from this new fellowship program will assist with ongoing projects as staff members, expanding and exploring interpretive programs for our library and museum.

Curatorial Fellows

Sherri Sheu (University of Colorado Boulder) | Haas Curatorial Fellow
Focus: Museum Interpretation Projects

Shuko Tamao (University at Buffalo) | Cain Curatorial Fellow
Focus: Oral History Projects

Postdoctoral Research Fellows

Armel Cornu (Uppsala University) | Price Postdoctoral Fellow
The Transmission of Sensory Knowledge in 18th-Century Chemistry

Louis Gerdelan (Harvard University) | Haas Postdoctoral Fellow
Catastrophic Knowledge: The Investigation of Disaster in the British, Spanish and French Atlantic Worlds, ca.1605–1780

Bono Shih (Virginia Tech) | Cain Postdoctoral Fellow
Engineering at the Crossroads of Chemistry and Industry: Developing Ideas of Chemical Engineering, 1880–1980

Meagan S. Allen | Cain 80/20 Postdoctoral Fellow
Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy: Occult Remedies and the Quest to Prolong Life

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

Dissertation Fellows

Rebecca L. Jackson (Indiana University) | Doan Dissertation Fellow
Measuring “Well:” Clinical Measuring Practices and Philosophy of Measurement

Miriam F. Lipton (Oregon State University) | Cain Dissertation Fellow
Bacteriophages and Antibiotics: The History of Cold War Politics of Antibiotic Resistance

Rohini Patel (University of Toronto) | Haas Dissertation Fellow
Chemical Modernities: Politics of Production, Waste, and Empire in Elmira, Ontario, 1940–2000

Gustave Lester (Harvard University) | Dissertation Fellow in Residence
Mineral Lands, Mineral Empire: Mapping the Raw Materials of U.S. Industrial Capitalism, 1780–1880

Distinguished Fellow

Alice Lovejoy (University of Minnesota) | Cain Distinguished Fellow
Cinema’s Militant Chemistry: Film and its Raw Materials

Cain Conference Fellows

Jeremy A. Greene (The Johns Hopkins University), Dolly Jørgensen (University of Stavanger, Norway), Victoria Lee (Ohio University), Amy Slaton (Drexel University)
Embedded Connections: Science in Humanities, Humanities in Science

Beckman Center Short-Term Fellows

Nicholas Allred (Rutgers University) | Allington Fellow
Character Under the Influence in 18th-Century Britain

Kerri Arsenault (Independent Scholar) | Ullyot Scholar
Body of Evidence: A New Biography of Rachel Carson

Marcus Carrier (Bielefeld University) | Cain Fellow
Chemistry without Substance: The History and Epistemic Status of Computational Chemistry

Matthew Crawford (Kent State University) | Cain Fellow
Where Was the Enlightenment? Silver Mining, Technology, and Expertise in Late Colonial Peru, 1780–1820

David Dunning (University of Oxford) | Herdegen Fellow
To Program Language: A History of What We Talk with in the Age of Computing

Deborah Garwood (Drexel University) | Otlet Fellow
Exploring Collaborative Documentary Practices for Science History Institute’s Oral History Collection

Susannah Glickman (Columbia University) | Cain Fellow
Quantum, “Tech,” and the New Central Planning

Daniel Graham (Slippery Rock University) | Mistry Fellow
Structures of Change in a Chemical Age

Sarah Hijmans (Université de Paris) | Doan Fellow
Between the Scientific and the Domestic: Anna Sundström’s Work in Berzelius’s House, 1819–1835

Sofiya Kamalova (University of Valencia) | Seidel Fellow
The Making of Toxic Ignorance in Occupational Health: The Ardystil Syndrome, a Collective Intoxication at the Workplace in Late 20th-Century Spain

Margaret Maurer (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) | Allington Fellow
Everyday Alchemy

Odinn Melsted (Maastricht University) | Cain Fellow
Chemical Perspectives: The Oil Industry, Geochemical Exploration Techniques, and Alternative Fuels Research in the 1970s

Edoardo Pierini (University of Geneva) | Allington Fellow
Chemical Medicines and Dangerous Drugs: Sources and Impact of Angelo Sala’s Opiologia

Rosalind Powell (University of Bristol) | Haas Fellow
Bodies of Knowledge: Discourses of Self-Experimentation in the Long 18th Century

Shoshana Simons (University of California Berkeley) | Cain Fellow
The Digitization of Chemistry and Computing

Geert Somsen (Maastricht University) | Röhm and Haas Fellow in Focus
Why Gather? Reflections on the History (and Future) of Scientific Conferences

Gina Surita (Princeton University) | Haas Fellow
The Currency of the Cell: Energy Cycles and the Remaking of Metabolism, 1900–1970

Qinyan Wu (University of Pennsylvania) | Presidential Junior Fellow
Controlling Systems and Controlling Legacies: Barbara McClintock’s 1961 Conversation with Two Bacterial Geneticists