Research Fellows

Jennifer Rampling

Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, HPS
Research Fellow, Clare Hall

Research interests

History of alchemy, medicine and natural philosophy; early modern European intellectual history; history and philosophy of chemistry.

I am currently writing a book about the fifteenth-century English alchemist George Ripley (d. ca. 1490), and working on a Wellcome Trust-funded project, 'Medicine and the making of English alchemy, 1300–1700'. I have also edited a volume of essays on the Elizabethan mathematician and astrologer, John Dee (1527–1609). I have recently held visiting fellowships at the Scaliger Institute, University of Leiden (2010), and the University of Athens (2011), and been appointed deputy editor of Ambix.

Teaching interests

I lecture on Paper 2 (Early Medicine) and Paper 3 (Natural Philosophies: Renaissance to Enlightenment) in HPS. I am particularly interested in supervising undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations related to the history of alchemy, chemistry and chemical medicine, as well as medieval and early modern medicine and natural philosophy more generally.

Selected publications

• (Ed.) Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 43 (2012), special issue, 'John Dee and the Sciences: Early Modern Networks of Knowledge'.
• 'John Dee and the alchemists: practising and promoting English alchemy in the Holy Roman Empire' in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 43 (2012).
• 'The Elizabethan mathematics of everything: John Dee's "Mathematicall Praeface" to Euclid', BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 26 (2011), 1–12.
• 'The Catalogue of the Ripley Corpus: alchemical writings attributed to George Ripley (d. ca. 1490)', Ambix, 57 (2010), 125–201. [345 KB PDF file]
• 'Establishing the Canon: George Ripley and his alchemical sources', Ambix, 55 (2008), 189–208. Awarded the 2008 Partington Prize. [173 KB PDF file]

Conferences, seminars and workshops

• Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, 22–24 September 2011 (CRASSH). Co-convened with Lauren Kassell and Peter M. Jones.
• AD HOC (History of Chemistry) Reading Group, 2010–present (HPS). Co-convened with Hasok Chang.
• SHAC Workshops on the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 8 January 2010 and 21 September 2011 (HPS).
• The John Dee Quatercentenary Conference, 21–22 September 2009 (St John's College, Cambridge). Co-convened with Katie Taylor and Peter Forshaw.
• M&EM: Medieval and Early Modern interdisciplinary workshop series, 2007–2008 (CRASSH and HPS). Co-convened with Felicity Green (History).