Graduate Students
Peter Collopy
(2008)
Before coming to Penn, Peter earned a B.A. in history at Oberlin College and worked as a science museum demonstrator, archival assistant, and computer programmer. His senior thesis at Oberlin was on George Frederick Wright, a late 19th century American theologian/geologist, and the development of Wright's ideas about Darwinism and Christianity. Religious interpretations of evolutionary theory remain among Peter's interests, joined by the social contexts and implications of computing, and the history of biology and technology more generally. Contact
Meggie Crnic
(2006)
Meggie received her AB in History of Science from Harvard University in 2001. In her senior thesis, "A Crop of Better Babies: Better Babies Contests and the Commodification of American Children in the Early Twentieth Century," she examined the relationship between the contests and the infant welfare movement, eugenics, agriculture, and the standardization of babies' bodies. Meggie is currently expanding this project, looking at the emergence of well baby visits, the use of pediatric height and weight charts, and how concepts of health and disease were constructed in relation to norms and averages. More broadly, she is interested in the intersection of health and the environment and the history of medicine in the United States. Meggie enjoys exploring Philly (especially its restaurants!), watching football, taking her dog for walks, and traveling with her husband wherever and whenever possible. Contact.
Deanna Day
(2007)
Deanna Day graduated with an A.B. from the University of Chicago in 2006, where she concentrated in American history. While an unfocused undergraduate, Deanna studied the history of young adult publishing, film tourism in Amish country, science and religion in cases before the United States Supreme Court, and a host of other situations where cultures clashed both loudly and quietly. Her current research interests include adolescent medicine, American health care policy, and public health education and literacy; she is particularly concerned with the ways in which power is created and communicated in the relationships between patients and health care providers. When she is not contemplating Foucauldian implications, Deanna also enjoys long games of Uno, pink flamingos, and lime-flavored everything. Contact.
Erica Dwyer
(2006)
Erica once believed she was going to be a scientist, and graduated with a BA in Biology and Chemistry from Williams College in 2003. She attributes her lack of results on her undergrad biochemistry thesis to the distractions of activist life: organizing die-ins to fight HIV/AIDS seemed more pressing than understanding the developmental proteins of soil bacteria. After college, she spent a year as a Fulbright student in Durban, South Africa, first as a researcher in an HIV lab, then as an intern at one of the first HIV clinics in Durban to provide antiretrovirals. Despite new insights into the political processes that influence science and medicine, she joined the Penn MD/PhD program in 2004, with the intention of getting a PhD in immunology. Soon she found her home "on the other side of Spruce Street", however, and joined HSS in 2006, after completing two years of medical school. Erica is interested in studying international health interventions in South(ern) Africa, and is intrigued by questions relating to power, money, accountability and the complex negotiations between local, global and national forces that have profound effects on sick and healthy bodies. She's also fascinated by the apparent rise of "global health" as a motivating force for medical students. (And yes, she will eventually finish that MD, too.) Contact.
Rachel Elder
(2008)
Before joining HSS, Rachel received an MA from the University of Warwick in England and a BA from the University of Guelph in her native Ontario. According to her own mythology, her interest in the history of medicine arose as an undergraduate while studying a controversial inquest case involving a domestic servant at the Toronto Lunatic Asylum in the 1860s. Her Master’s thesis then considered the advertisement, usage, and eventual restriction of patent female pills in Victorian England. Rachel’s prime interests continue to be gender, medicine, expertise, and consumption in the 19th and early 20th centuries, though she is currently enjoying exploring the fields of environment and technology as well. Contact.
Matthew Hersch
(2003)
Matthew Hersch received an SB in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a JD from New York University School of Law. Matthew's teaching and research interests focus on the history of Western science and technology, human spaceflight, information technology, and elite professions, as well as the relationship between Cold War-era American technology and popular culture. Matthew was a 2007-2008 Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellow of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, and currently holds the HSS/NASA Fellowship in the History of Space Science. Matthew is admitted to practice law before the Bars of the State of New York and the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Recent publications: "High Fashion: The Women’s Undergarment Industry and the Foundations of American Spaceflight," Fashion Theory 13 (2009): 345-70; "Checklist: The Secret Life of Apollo's 'Fourth Crewmember,'" Sociological Review 57 (2009): 6-24; "'Calm, but still alert': Marketing Stelazine to Disturbed America, 1958-1980," Pharmacy in History 51 (2009): 140–48.
Contact.
Eric Hintz
(2003)
Eric earned his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1996, then worked for nearly 6 years in San Francisco as a technology consultant for Accenture. After leaving the corporate world, Eric taught both science and history in a San Francisco high school, and volunteered in an aviation museum. These experiences crystallized his preference for teaching and researching the history of science and technology, versus being a practitioner. Eric earned his M.A in the department in 2005, and is now pursuing a dissertation which considers the changing fortunes of American independent inventors from 1900-1950, an era of burgeoning industrial R&D. Eric is interested in the history of 19th and 20th century science and technology; U.S. business and economic history; 20th century invention, innovation and research and development; and the relationship between religion (particularly Catholicism) and science, technology and medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries. Eric enjoys playing drums, playing basketball, cheering his beloved Fighting Irish, and hanging out with his wife Emma and sons Patrick and Gavin. Contact.
Andy Hogan
(2008)
Andy comes to Penn with a BS in Biological Sciences from Cornell University. Originally from Buffalo, NY, he moved to Philadelphia by way of Washington, DC, where he spent one year teaching chemistry at the high school level. Andy's primary interest is in the history and social implications of genomic technology. His current research deals with early biomedical databases, such as GenBank, and how they have been integrated into the communication network of research science. Embedded within this complicated framework are issues of the priority, privacy, and accessibility of data. Outside of his research, Andy is an avid bicycler, concert-goer, and urban wanderer. He continues to hold out hope that someday the Stanley Cup or Vince Lombardi Trophy will find its way to his beloved Buffalo. Contact
Whitney Laemmli
(2009)
Whitney Laemmli earned her B.A. in History from Duke University in 2007. As an undergraduate, she fell in love with both science policy and history and was thrilled to discover a productive way to combine the two. After much intellectual wandering, her senior thesis centered around the curious confluence of art, literature, sociobiology, and feminist philosophy of science in 1970s America. Before arriving at Penn, Whitney spent two years as an assistant editor at Oxford University Press, where she worked on sociology, criminology, and women’s studies titles. Currently, Whitney has interests in genetics, gender, scientific communication, popular science, and science and the arts. In her free time, she enjoys ballet, baking, old musicals, and 19th century hats. Contact
Jessica Martucci
(2005)
Jessica graduated with a BA from Oberlin College in 2003 where she majored in biology and environmental studies. Her research interests now include the history of medicine, the social sciences, gender/sexuality, and the family in America. Her dissertation investigates the history of infant feeding over the second half of the 20th century. She is interested in understanding changes in scientific ideas and advice surrounding the “breast vs. bottle” question, as well as looking at how mothers themselves experienced infant feeding over this time. Her work focuses on the shifting meanings that breastfeeding has held and what these can tell us about changes in the construction of motherhood, the American family, and the role of medicine and the human sciences in the late-20th –century. Contact.
Marissa Mika
(2008)
Marissa Mika's primary area of interest is in the history of health and healing in 20th century Africa. She holds a B.A. in Development Studies with honors from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.H.S. in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Marissa is passionate about international travel especially when it involves minibus taxis, and has lived in both South Africa and Togo. She is particularly interested in the history of hospitals, blood born diseases, international medical research, the impact of structural adjustment on health, and therapeutics. A California native, she enjoys cooking with her husband, writing for non-academic audiences, and the all too rare safari. Contact.
Jonathan Milde
(2007)
Jonathan Milde earned a BS in physics and chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999. He contemplated medical school during a research year spent in a laboratory that focused on understanding the heart in terms of physics and engineering, but ultimately sought other adventures. Jonathan spent the next two academic years in France, first as a high school teacher of English and then as a Rotary Scholar to the Sorbonne, earning a diploma in French language. On returning to the US, Jonathan worked for four and a half years as a technology consultant at Accenture, where he first became interested in the history of technology. Since starting his graduate studies, he has focused his research on nanotechnology, especially the daily practices of interdisciplinary researchers who produce it. Jonathan enjoys spending time with his wife Bess, learning the local history and architecture of Philadelphia, and playing golf and racquetball. Contact.
Samantha Muka
(2008)
Originally from Chaffee, Missouri, Samantha (Sam) Muka found her way to HSSC on a meandering path. She received a B.A. in Literature from Florida State University in 2002 and an M.A. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the same institution in 2005. Her undergraduate work was on the Bloomsbury group and her Master's thesis focused on the varied religious reactions to syphilis in America at the turn of the twentieth century. She is hoping to keep her family guessing as to what she actually studies at Penn. Her current research interests involve eugenics, field science, and biology in the early twentieth century. Contact.
Tamar Novick
(2008)
Tamar earned her BA in Cognitive Science and the "School of History" program from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Following a research project on Israel's polio epidemic in the 1950s, she is currently interested in the history of health, medicine and public health policy, in interwar Palestine in particular.
Contact
Jason Oakes
(2008)
Though raised in sunny Southern California, Jason Oakes is a native son of the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. He received a B.A in Biology from Reed College in 2000, where he wrote his undergraduate thesis on salamander embryology. Prior to coming to the department he worked as a technician in developmental biology labs in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, and as a contractor in the construction trades in Philadelphia. He is currently most interested in the history of the biomedical sciences, gender, instrumentation, and the ways that nature and culture inform and restrict each other. Contact
Joanna Radin
(2005)
Joanna entered the department with BS and MS degrees in science communication from Cornell University, where she researched scientists’ framing of the societal implications of nanotechnology. Prior to returning to academia, she worked as a risk communication consultant for several leading public health and environmental organizations. At Penn, Joanna suspects she has become a “historian of the future,” having done research on the roots of nanotechnology and other emerging consumer technologies including genetic ancestry testing and umbilical cord blood banking. She has also co-edited a book on the past, present, and future of the FDA. Her current interests focus on archival practices in the modern biological sciences and the ways genomic techniques blur boundaries between human and non-human animals. Joanna’s dissertation, “Life on Ice: Frozen Blood, Anthropology, and Biodiversity in a Genomic Age” traces the history of freezers as instruments in the practice of genomic anthropology and conservation biology. She enjoys museum-going, running, and cooking with her husband Matthew. Contact.
Lisa Rand
(2009)
Lisa graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in English and a minor in astronomy, a combination which led her into some grand interdisciplinary adventures. These included a semester studying astrophysics at the Biosphere, an independent study project examining gender in the early American space program, and four years as a science editor developing textbooks for college and young adult audiences. At Penn, Lisa plans to expand her interests in gender, nationalism, and technology into comparative study of the Cold War space race and the fledgling space programs in Asia and the Middle East. She writes plays from time to time, loves the American national park system, and plays the mandolin (poorly). Contact.
Divya Roy
(2001)
Divya entered with a B.A in history and molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her senior honors thesis was on women medical missionaries in India. Her combined interests in history and medicine led her to Penn, where she is interested in the history of medicine (Western and South Asian), history of modern South Asia, and the British Empire. For her dissertation she would like to study the maternal and infant welfare movement in 20th century India. Contact.
Corinna Schlombs
(2002)
Corinna Schlombs graduated in sociology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Before coming to Penn, she did research on the history of Artificial Intelligence. She is interested in the history of technology, particularly information technology, and in the history of 19th and 20th century science. Contact.
Jason Schwartz
(2006)
Jason L. Schwartz received an A.B. in classics from Princeton University in 2003 and a master’s degree in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. Prior to entering the department, Jason was affiliated with the School of Medicine and Center for Bioethics at Penn. His general interests include the history of medicine and public health in the 20th century, American health policy, and the use of historical inquiry to better inform contemporary debates in health and medicine. Jason’s current research focuses on vaccines and vaccination programs, building upon his previous work on historical, ethical, and social aspects of global vaccine development and policy. Contact.
Perrin Selcer
(2003)
Perrin is completing his dissertation, “Patterns of Science: Developing Knowledge for a World Community at Unesco, 1946–1973.” His research has garnered the support of an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the SSRC and a Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Council for European Studies at Columbia University. In 2008, he was awarded the John C. Burnham Early Career Award from the Forum for the History of the Human Sciences for his paper “The View from Everywhere: Disciplining Diversity in Post World War Two International Social Science,” which appears in the fall 2009 Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. His article “Standardizing Wounds: Alexis Carrel and the Scientific Management of Life in the First World War” was published in the British Journal for the History of Science in 2007. Currently, he is a visiting scholar in the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.
Contact.
Brittany Shields
(2008)
Brittany Shields graduated from New York University’s Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought in 2008, where she focused on Science Studies. Her Master’s thesis was titled “A Sociological and Historical Study of the Early Development of New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences,” a project which she has continued to research while at Penn. Prior to her graduate studies, Brittany received her BA in Mass Communications from Miami University in 2002. She spent several years working in Los Angeles as an Associate Producer in television production. Contact
Nell Thomas
(2009)
Nellwyn Thomas earned an A.B. in Psychology from Harvard College in 2005. As a graduate of the interdisciplinary Mind/Brain/Behavior track, she concentrated on cognitive neuroscience but found a home in a social psychology lab; her undergraduate thesis included an experiment designed to test the effect of affirmative action policies on discrimination in higher education. After college, Nell worked as a research analyst, product manager and marketing director for three technology-related companies. At Penn, Nell hopes to explore both facets of her own past: late 20th century American technology and the history of psychological experimentation. She loves french fries, to-do lists and rock & roll. Contact
Roger Turner
(2003)
Roger Turner is living in Washington as a Guggenheim Pre-doctoral Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum. His dissertation, "Weathering Heights: the Emergence of Aeronautical Meteorology as an Infrastructural Science," explains how the development of aviation transformed the upper air from a scientific curiosity into a subject crucial to commercial and military power. He's interested in uniting the history of technology, science, and environmental history by exploring how routine observations of the natural
world, what astronomer George Biddell Airy called "the permanent sciences," are used in the operation of large technological systems. You can learn more about his research, such as how meteorological training cartoons during World War II influenced the representation of gender and expertise in TV weather report, at his website. He will be graduating in May 2010. Contact
Kristoffer Whitney
(2005)
Kristoffer graduated in 1998 from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a BS in Environmental Management and Technology. After dabbling in industrial environmental consulting, he ran away and joined the Peace Corps, spending two years teaching ecology in a post-Soviet Kazakhstani university. Upon returning to the US, he worked for several years at a small nonprofit organization in New Jersey doing experiential environmental and history education. Kristoffer joined the HSS community at Penn with interests in public and environmental history, and is writing his dissertation on estuary science and the links between marine and wetlands ecology, fishing communities, and environmental policy. Contact.
Liyong Xing
(2003)
Liyong Xing received her Double B.A. degrees in History and Economics from Peking University (Beijing, China) in 2003. A three-year undergraduate research project on Beijing’s fuel system (15th- 20th centuries), sponsored by China’s Chun-Tsung Endowment, began her general interest in history of Chinese science, technology, and medicine. Liyong is currently pursuing a degree at Penn Law, and hopes to finish with both an L.L.D. and Ph.D. Her potential dissertation will be a comparative study about the transnational movement of hazardous computer waste from the developed nations to the developing, particularly from the U.S. to China. Contact.
Damon Yarnell
(2003)
Damon Yarnell specializes in urban studies, business history and the history of technology. His dissertation, “Making the Motor City: Ford, Detroit and the Politics of Mass Production, 1908-1929,” investigates the origin of supply chain management and its relationship to industrial land-use planning in Detroit. He has presented his work in Stockholm, Amsterdam, Vancouver and Las Vegas. Damon holds graduate degrees in Comparative Literature and Design. Contact.
