The PhD is the main degree granted by the History and Sociology of Science program. Our students quickly become active scholars, presenting their research at conferences, securing funding and prizes, and publishing their work.  Recent graduates have won prizes for their work from the Society for the History of Technology and the Business History Society, and published in top-tier journals such as Technology and Culture and Social Studies of Science.

Further information about degree requirements, current graduate students, alumni, and other aspects of the program can be found through the navigation menu to the left. For further information, contact the chair of the Graduate Group.

Our Placement Record

Although the job market is competitive, our graduates have fared very well over the years. The majority work at universities, and they are members of the faculty at Binghamton, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Pennsylvania State, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rutgers University, Stanford, the Universities of California, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Amsterdam, Sydney and New South Wales. Others work in museums, archives, research organizations, foundations and for business corporations. Several of our MD-PhD graduates combine careers in medical history and the clinical practice of medicine.

Penn has an outstanding network of alumni who play a key role in helping us place our current students. Faculty in the department have a strong commitment to training students to learn all the skills they will need to be competitive in the academic job market. The Graduate Group prepares scholars for careers not only in academia but also in other fields where knowledge of both technical work and its social and political contexts is valued, including historic preservation, government service, and technology and health policy.