Graduate students 2011–12
Shahar Avin
College: Trinity
Year: PhD 2
Supervisors: Tim Lewens and Stephen John
Thesis topic: Philosophy of science funding
Research interests: Science funding, bibliometrics, methodologies of science, philosophy of physics, causation, pragmatism
Previous studies: Part III HPS, undergraduate physics
Alexandra Bacopoulos-Viau
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: John Forrester
Thesis topic: 'Automatic writing' in fin-de-siècle France
Research interests: History of psychiatry, psychology and the mind sciences in their wider socio-cultural context (emphasis on 19th- and early 20th-century France); links between literary and medical discourse; patients' narratives; gender perspectives in historical representations of madness; work of Pierre Janet (1859–1947); demarcation between science and pseudoscience
Previous studies: McGill (BA); Cambridge (MPhil)
Jenny Bangham
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood and Nick Jardine
Thesis topic: Human genetics, anthropology and blood groups, 1930–1960
Research interests: Histories of human genetics, physical anthropology, race science; genetic notations, their history and epistemology; the uses and representations of human genetic diversity
Previous studies: MPhil in HPS; Postdoc, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh; PhD, Department of Biology, University College London
Megan Barford
College: Trinity
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Science and empire; hydrography, cartography, navigation; cultures of precision; geographies of science
Katy Barrett
College: Gonville and Caius
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Simon Schaffer and Richard Dunn (NMM)
Thesis topic: What was the problem with longitude? Science, satire and society in Augustan England
Research interests: History of collecting, 18th-century art and literature, modern museum practice
Previous studies: BA and MSt History at Exeter College Oxford, Graduate Certificate History of Art at Birkbeck
Profile at the Board of Longitude Project
Spoons on Trays blog
Riana Betzler
College: Clare
Year: MPhil
Jonathan Birch
College: Clare
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Tim Lewens
Thesis topic: The organism in transition: social evolution and collective individuality
Research interests: Philosophy of biology, general philosophy of science
Previous studies: BA in Natural Sciences (Cambridge), MPhil in HPS (Cambridge)
PhilPapers profile
Shannon Bohle
College: St Edmund's
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Nick Jardine and Liba Taub
Thesis topic: Preservation of historical and archival materials at Cambridge
Research interests: Cultural preservation for archives, libraries and museums; digital archiving; digital curation; artificial intelligence; history of biology, specifically molecular biology; history of aeronautics, astronautics and astronomy; synthetic immersive environments; science instruments and data; laboratory notebooks
Previous experience: 2nd Place winner, White House/US Department of Defense international artificial intelligence challenge; Director/Volunteer, Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives, NASA JPL/Caltech; Archivist of the James D. Watson Collection, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Practicum Student (Intern), NASA Glenn Research Center – History Division, Archives
Academia.edu profile
Ramona A. Braun
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood
Thesis topic: Laparoscopy in the control of human fertility: practice, instruments and knowledge transfer in British and German gynaecology, 1950–80
Sophie Brockmann
College: St John's
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Nick Jardine
Thesis topic: The study of nature in Central America, 1770–1840
Research interests: Science in Latin American colonial history, history of exploration, cartography
Previous studies: Oxford (BA in Ancient and Modern History), Cambridge (MPhil in HPS)
Toby Bryant
College: Darwin
Year: MPhil
Michael Bycroft
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Hasok Chang
Thesis topic: Methodological dynamics in the study of electricity, 1650–1750
Research interests: Francis Hauksbee, Charles Dufay, Robert Boyle, and other early modern electricians; the relationship between exploration, replication, and abstraction in experimental inquiry; sampling procedures in experiment, esp. stratified sampling; experimental uses of natural history in the 18th century; early modern mineralogy; the Jardin du Roi and Académie des Sciences in the early 18th century
Previous studies: University of Canterbury, New Zealand (BA in HPS); University of Toronto (MSc in HPS)
William Carruthers
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Eleanor Robson
Thesis topic: A question of standards? Egyptology in the mid-20th century
Research interests: Social construction of science; ideas of race; colonialism and post-colonialism; social elites; history of archaeology, anthropology and the social sciences; Egyptian and Middle Eastern ideas of ancient Egypt; grand narratives; circularity of archaeological method; relationship of professionals and the public
Previous studies: BA Egyptian Archaeology (UCL); MA in Research Methods for Archaeology (UCL)
Yoon Choi
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 6
Supervisor: Onora O'Neill
Thesis topic: The self and self-knowledge in Kant's critical philosophy
Research interests: Kant
Alastair Cliff
College: Pembroke
Year: MPhil
Research interests: The history of medicine; especially in the early modern period, renaissance surgery and anatomy, the impact of social status on reactions to disease, the transmission of medical and natural philosophical knowledge between cultures and traditions, the importance of authority in constructing medical traditions
Previous studies: BA. Part I: History, Part II: HPS
Faraz Dianat
College: King's
Year: Part III
Craig Docherty
College: Clare
Year: Part III
Tegan Donnelley
College: King's
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Environmental history; history of evolutionary ideas; history of nutrition and alternative medicine; bioethics and public health
Previous studies: BA History, Yale University
Vashka dos Remedios
College: Peterhouse
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Hasok Chang
Thesis topic: Rationality in science
Research interests: Scientific rationality, theory choice, Thomas Kuhn, Otto Neurath
Previous studies: Part III HPS
Sean Dyde
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: John Forrester
Thesis topic: Brain-body relations in the 19th century
Research interests: Histories of medicine, psychiatry and life science; philosophical issues surrounding the human sciences; historical and philosophical aspects in the science-religion debate
Previous studies: University of Melbourne, University of Sydney
Ruth Ezra
College: Emmanuel
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Early modern print culture; the art of scientific images; theories of mind
Previous studies: Courtauld Institute (MA, History of Art); Williams College (BA, History of Art, Cognitive Science)
Seb Falk
College: Homerton
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Cartography; navigation; science in the medieval universities; museums and museology
Previous studies: BA Oxford (History and Spanish); PGCE
Carl Fisher
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: Early Darwinian commemoration in Britain, 1882–1914
Research interests: Scientific commemoration, science publishing, development of the biological sciences, sociology of scientific knowledge
Florian Ganzinger
College: Trinity
Year: MPhil
Research interests: General philosophy of science, epistemology of natural sciences, philosophy of time, philosophy of mind, Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger
Previous studies: Philosophy
Natasha Goldberg
College: Trinity
Year: PhD 4 (submitted; awaiting viva)
Supervisor: Eleanor Robson
Thesis topic: Selfish genes and nature's joints: the role of metaphor in the realist/relativist debate in philosophy of science
Research interests: Language, metaphor, thought
Previous studies: BA (Hons) in MML (French and German), MPhil (HPS)
Charlotte Granville
College: Pembroke
Year: Part III
James Hall
College: Downing
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: 19th-century discourses on snakes in Britain and South Asia
Research interests: History of natural history; science and empire; cultural history of animals; 'popular' science; ethnology, race and class
Previous studies: University of Cambridge (BA in Natural Sciences; MPhil in HPS)
Natalie Harries
College: Clare Hall
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Philosophy of chemistry, philosophy of quantum mechanics, history of the physical sciences, science and the law, ethics
Previous studies: Cardiff University (MChem, Chemistry)
Ruth Horry
College: Trinity Hall
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Eleanor Robson
Thesis topic: Early 20th-century reception of Mesopotamian sacrificial divination
Research interests: Material cultures of knowledge; history of Assyriology; Mesopotamian divination and its early 20th-century reception; science displayed in the public arena; museums and museology; scientific models; 20th-century science in Cambridge
Jiri Hudecek
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 4
Supervisors: Eleanor Robson and Catherine Jami
Thesis topic: You fight your way, I fight my way: Wu Wen-Tsun and traditional Chinese mathematics
Research interests: History of modern and traditional Chinese mathematics; practical mathematics and computation; sociology of mathematics
Previous studies: Charles University (Sinology); Czech Technical University (Transportation Engineering); Cambridge (HPS)
Stephen Irish
College: Hughes Hall
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Hasok Chang
Thesis topic: Crystallography in Britain, 1800–1850
Research interests: 19th-century chemistry, history of the physical sciences
Previous studies: BA, MA Stanford University (philosophy); BS, BS Indiana University (physics, mathematics)
Andrea Kennedy
College: Clare
Year: MPhil
Research interests: History of modern medicine, bioethics, life extension technologies, law and science, history and sociology of gender, gender and madness, reproduction and generation, history of erotica, modern healthcare, history of hospitals, doctor-patient relations, 18th- and 19th-century medicine
Previous studies: BA in English and History (Rutgers University, USA)
Grace Kim
College: St John's
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Film, museum practices, intersections of science and art
Previous studies: BA in History and Science, Neurobiology minor (Harvard)
Katharina Klaus
College: Clare
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Nick Jardine, Marina Frasca-Spada
Thesis topic: Kant's conception of psychology – critical philosophy as an approach to a philosophy of the neurosciences
Research interests: Kant, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of physics, philosophy of mind, epistemology of the natural sciences
Previous studies: Physics (Diplom, Heidelberg University), Philosophy (MPhil, HPS, Cambridge)
Allison Ksiazkiewicz
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: Images of the earth and practices of visualizing history in British geology, 1780–1820
Research interests: Late 18th- and early 19th-century British geology; theories of architecture, aesthetics and landscape; 18th- and 19th-century antiquarian studies of ancient civilizations
Previous studies: University of Cambridge (MPhil in HPS); York University (MA in Art History); Mount Allison University (BFA)
Karina Kumar
College: Corpus Christi
Year: Part III
Research interests: Early modern natural philosophy, intellectual history of the sciences, race in the late 18th century, travel writing and voyages of discovery
Previous studies: History Parts I and II
David Liebers
College: Trinity
Year: MPhil
Research interests: History of genetics, politics and science, bioethics, history of ornithology and evolutionary psychology
Previous studies: University of Rochester (BA History; BS Evolutionary Biology)
Emily McTernan
College: King's
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Stephen John
Thesis topic: Equality, work and talent
Research interests: Political philosophy, ethics, bioethics and philosophy of science
Matthew Meizlish
College: King's
Year: MPhil
Research interests: History of immunology; role of models and metaphor in the development of and interaction between scientific disciplines; theory choice and the dynamics of paradigm shifts
Previous studies: Yale University (BA, History)
Esther Momcilovic
College: Clare
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: 19th-century geology
Research interests: 19th-century science and Romanticism; science and literature
Previous studies: HPS Part III
Dmitriy (Dima) Myelnikov
College: Emmanuel
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood
Thesis topic: History of transgenic mice, 1980–1987
Research interests: History of post-WWII biology and biomedicine; laboratory animals and model organisms; science communication and history of science-media relations; visual cultures of science
Previous studies: Part III HPS
Joshua Nall
College: Trinity Hall
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: The relationship between astronomy as a discipline, popular media forms, and public reception, in the 'Mars canal controversy'
Rory Nath
College: Trinity Hall
Year: Part III
Research interests: History of science in the Indian Ocean with specific attention to transnational approaches; the interaction between men of science, other sources of cultural authority, and the public in Victorian Britain
Previous studies: Natural Sciences, Part II HPS
Jesse Olszynko-Gryn
College: Robinson
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Nick Hopwood
Thesis topic: Pregnancy testing in 20th-century Britain
Research interests: Modern medicine, biomedical sciences, reproductive technologies, women's health, feminism
William Peden
College: Clare Hall
Year: MPhil
Emma Perkins
College: Newnham
Year: PhD 3
Supervisors: Nick Jardine and Liba Taub
Thesis topic: Tycho Brahe's astronomical images
Research interests: Renaissance and early modern history of science, especially material and visual culture; museums and collections; cartography; science and religion
Previous studies: BA in Natural Sciences (Cambridge); MPhil in HPS (Cambridge)
Eoin Phillips
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Simon Schaffer
Thesis topic: Institutionalisation/organisation of technical practices/strategies in England, roughly 1780–1820
Research interests: Institutionalisation of mathematical/mechanical practice, 18th- and 19th-century technological relations of natural philosophy, scepticism and culture, education strategies, theories of organisation, global history, industrial sociology
Previous studies: BA History Warwick, MPhil HPS Cambridge
James Poskett
College: King's
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Historiography of the sciences (particularly global histories of science and individual histories of science); history of the human sciences; history and philosophy of pluralism
Previous studies: University of Cambridge (BA Natural Sciences, Part II HPS)
Lowri Richards
College: Robinson
Year: Part III
Research interests: History of psychiatry, architecture as science; sanitation and health care in 19th-century cities; spiritualism, science and technology in the Arctic; science and public policy; nature and governance in colonial Africa; historical and contemporary representations of famine
Previous studies: Part II Geography
Alix Rogers
College: Clare
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Tim Lewens
Research interests: Human tissue regulation; bioethics; science policy; history of modern medicine; jurisprudence
Rahul Rose
College: St John's
Year: MPhil
Previous studies: Anthropology and archaeology undergrad at Cambridge
Simone Schleper
College: St Edmund's
Year: MPhil
Research interests: The history of the human sciences, 19th- and 20th-century history of medicine, 19th- and 20th-century innovation studies, STS
Previous studies: Maastricht University (BA Arts and Culture)
Kathryn Schoefert
College: Downing
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: John Forrester
Thesis topic: Material culture of brain-based sciences, 1930–1960
Research interests: Histories of life sciences and medicine; material culture, material practices, and the sites of science; questions of collections; brains
Previous studies: MPhil (University of Cambridge, HPS); MArch (Princeton University); BS in Architecture (University of Virginia)
Minwoo Seo
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Hasok Chang
Thesis topic: Philosophy of scientific discovery in practice and history of energy and its conservation
Research interests: Discovery, discoverer and realism, philosophy and sociology of scientific practice, integrated history and philosophy of science, history of physical sciences in late 18th and 19th centuries
Previous studies: MS (History of Science) and BS (Physics and Mathematics) at Seoul National University
Arianne Shahvisi
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Jeremy Butterfield
Thesis topic: Cosmology and time
Research interests: Philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind
Previous studies: Astrophysics (Cambridge), Philosophy of Physics (Oxford)
Reuben Shiels
College: King's
Year: Part III
Research interests: Philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, general philosophy of science
Previous studies: Natsci (Part II HPS)
Tillmann Taape
College: Clare
Year: Part III
Katie Taylor
College: Trinity
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Nick Jardine
Thesis topic: Elizabethan 'practical mathematics'
Research interests: Didactic strategies, visual display in print culture, early modern surveying and navigation
Previous studies: BA in Natural Sciences, Cambridge; MPhil in HPS, Cambridge
Nicholas Teh
College: Trinity
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Jeremy Butterfield
Research interests: Foundations/philosophy of physics (especially category-theoretic and geometric/topological interpretations of QFT, GR, and quantum gravity), philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and some areas in the philosophy of mind and action
Christopher Wagner
College: St John's
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: John Forrester
Thesis topic: The alchemical thought of Carl Gustav Jung
Research interests: History and philosophy of psychology, Western Esotericism, philosophy of history
Previous studies: MPhil (HPS), BA in History (Northwestern University)
Michelle Wallis
College: Pembroke
Year: PhD 1
Supervisor: Lauren Kassell
Thesis topic: Print and the practice of medicine in late 17th-century England
Research interests: History of medicine (early modern and modern), print culture, popular culture, intellectual history
Previous studies: BSc/BA, University of Newcastle, Australia, MSc History of Science Medicine and Technology, Oxford
Julie Walsh
College: Trinity Hall
Year: PhD 5
Supervisor: John Forrester
Thesis topic: Narcissism and its discontents
Research interests: Psychoanalysis and social theory
Previous studies: University of Warwick (BA in Sociology, MA in Social and Political Thought)
Sophie Waring
College: St Catharine's
Year: PhD 2
Supervisor: Simon Schaffer
Thesis topic: Thomas Young and the Physical Sciences, 1810–1835
Research interests: History of natural history, physical sciences in the early 19th century, medieval and early modern medicine
Previous studies: BSc in History and Philosophy of Science, UCL. MSc in History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Imperial
Profile at the Board of Longitude Project
Oliver Watson
College: Trinity
Year: Part III
Tom Welch
College: Clare Hall
Year: MPhil
Research interests: Early modern natural philosophy, history of atheism, history and methodologies of the history of science, history as a scientific enterprise, public constructions of science
Previous studies: BA, History (York)
Billy Wheeler
College: King's
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Tim Lewens
Thesis topic: The metaphysics of ideal laws: a Humean approach
Research interests: Methodology and scientific knowledge; the realism-antirealism debate; structural realism; models; idealisation, abstraction and analogy in the sciences; manipulation and experimentation
Previous studies: MPhil HPS (Cambridge) and BA Philosophy (King's College London)
Joeri Witteveen
College: Trinity
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Tim Lewens
Thesis topic: Rethinking 'typological vs. population' thinking: an integrated historical-philosophical analysis of a troubled dichotomy
Research interests: Philosophy of biology, history of biology (19th and 20th century)
Previous studies: Liberal arts (Maastricht (BA)), philosophy (Berkeley, LSE (MSc))
Website
Harry Wooler
College: Clare
Year: MPhil
Caitlin Donahue Wylie
College: Clare Hall
Year: PhD 3
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: Making fossils: a sociology of scientific work, workers, and specimens
Research interests: history of education, museums, science communication
Katie Zimmerman
College: Darwin
Year: PhD 4
Supervisor: Jim Secord
Thesis topic: Visualizing nature: the Marianne North Gallery at Kew and Victorian cultures of natural history
Research interests: 19th-century natural history and nature studies; disciplines and institutions; visualizations of nature; geographies of science; museums and museology; material culture and collection studies
Previous studies: University of California, San Diego (BA, History of Science); Oregon State University (MA, History of Science)
Compiled by Michael Bycroft