Research Fellows

Nicky Reeves

Research interests: History of natural philosophy and the physical sciences. Astronomy, navigation, surveying, geodesy and cartography; experimental cultures; museums and the politics and epistemology of collecting and displaying; scientific instruments, standards, machines and the material culture of the sciences.

Nicky is a Post-Doctoral Researcher on the AHRC-funded project The Board of Longitude 1714–1828: science, innovation and empire in the Georgian world.

Recent publications

• Review of W.F.J. Mörzer Bruyns, Sextants at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Mariner's Quadrants, Mariner's Astrolabes, Cross-Staffs, Back Staffs, Octants, Sextants, Quintants,Reflecting Circles, and Artificial Horizons in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2009, in Journal for the History of Astronomy 42(2) (2011), pp.269–271.
• Review of B. Bryson (ed.), Seeing Further: The Story of Science & The Royal Society, 2010, in Viewpoint: Newsletter of the British Society for the History of Science 93 (2010) p.8.
• '"To demonstrate the exactness of the instrument": Mountainside Trials of Precision in Scotland, 1774' Science in Context 22(3) (2009), pp.323–340.
• Constructing an Instrument: Nevil Maskelyne and the Zenith Sector, 1760–1774, PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge 2009. Email Nicky if you'd like a PDF.