James Voelkel

James R. Voelkel is a historian of early modern science. He is curator of rare books at the Othmer Library of Chemical History and resident scholar in the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Science History Institute. He is the author of The Composition of Kepler’s Astronomia nova (Princeton University Press, 2001) and the biography Johannes Kepler and the New Astronomy (Oxford University Press, 1999).

Voelkel has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University. He is a longtime contributor and senior consultant to the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project. He also teaches the course “The Scientific Revolution” at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously curated the rare-book exhibitions The Alchemical Quest and Books of Secrets in the Institute’s Hach Gallery.

Voelkel holds degrees in astronomy and physics from Williams College and in history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. He received his PhD in history of science from Indiana University.