On May 4th, SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell announced:
"I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Susan Lindee, Professor of History and Sociology of Science, as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, effective July 1, 2011. In this role she will oversee the Departments of Anthropology, Criminology, Economics, History and Sociology of Science, Political Science, and Sociology, as well as several research centers in the social sciences.
Susan is a distinguished historian of science, with special interests in the history of genetics, gender and science, science and popular culture, and science and war. She is the author of Moments of Truth in Genetic Medicine (2005); The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon (with Dorothy Nelkin, 1995, new edition 2004, translated into Japanese and French); and Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (1994). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 40th Anniversary Award, and support from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She has been on the Penn faculty since 1990, and spent ten years as a journalist before earning her Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Cornell. Susan will succeed Jack Nagel, who is completing his planned two-year term in order to retire from the faculty in December."
At HSS, we will miss Susan as she leaves being our chair to sojourn in the SAS Dean's Office. Susan will continue to teach at least one course a year. Ruth Schwartz Cowan will be Interim HSS Chair for the 2011-2012 year.