Department News and More

Contratulations to our graduate students in spring 2013 ...

Kirsty Lawson - April 26, 2013, successfully defended her M.A. thesis, "English Social Spaces:  Curiosity and Education in Science from 1650-1700".  Her committee members were Katherine Pandora (chair), Kerry Magruder, Judith Lewis.

Emily Margolis - May 1, 2013, successfully defended her M.A. thesis, “Atomic Deliveryman on Display: The Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center”.  Her committee members were Katherine Pandora (chair), Hunter Heyck, Peter Soppelsa.

Margaret Gaida - May 16, 2013, successfully completed her general examinations with an excellent written and oral performance.

Carolyn Scearce - May 2, 2013, successfully defended here M.A. thesis, “John Gray and Albert Gunther are Dead: Zoology at the British Museum during the Darwinian Era".  Her committee members were Katherine Pandora (chair), Piers Hale, Stephen Weldon. 

John Stewart - April 30, 2013, successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Chemical Affinity in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Physiology and Agriculture”.  His committee members were Peter Barker (chair), Kathleen Crowther, Kerry Magruder, Rienk Vermij, Stephen Weldon, Rich Hamerla, Judy Lewis.

Elizabeth Wilcox has been awarded the 2013 Corliss E. and Esther C. Livesey Scholarship. The award has been made possible by a generous bequest in the name of Corliss E. and Esther C. Livesey, the parents of Steven Livesey, the department chair. This is the first time the scholarship has been awarded.

Elizabeth Wilcox is a senior in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine undergraduate program.  With a background in chemistry and biology, she was drawn to the history of science program because, as she states, she finds that “the context is the most important thing to know when pursuing scientific progress... [since] ...complex problems require complex solutions.”  Since matriculating in 2011, Ms. Wilcox has maintained a high level of overall academic performance as well as a commitment to service. She has served the OU community as a volunteer and elected secretary for the Art Museum Ambassadors at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and as a registrar intern at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.  She is an active member in the student History of Science Association, and currently serves as the elected undergraduate liaison.  Ms. Wilcox has represented the department on the CAS Dean’s Student Advisory Committee and at Sooner Saturday and Major/Minor Fair campus events.  She was selected to participate in the 2012 Summer Study Abroad Program in Arezzo, Italy.  Ms. Wilcox plans to graduate in fall 2013 and pursue a career in health law and public health.

Sponsored by the Graduate College, Graduate College Student Ambassadors and Graduate Student Senate, the Student Research and Performance Day was held on Friday, March 8, 2013 from 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. in the National Weather Center located on OU South Campus. Research portfolios, posters, slide and video shows were judged by a panel of Norman campus faculty. In the Education/Fine Arts/Humanities B category, Jared Neumann received second-place recognition for his poster, “The Charles Kingsley and Thomas Huxley Correspondence: The Scope and Nature of Science in 1860.” This is the second consecutive year in which Jared has been recognized for his research; last year he received a Distinction in Undergraduate Research Award for his presentation, “Lullian Circles and Methodology.”

To see Jared's poster, click here.

Kenneth Taylor, professor emeritus of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, has been elected the 2012-2016 president of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences. His election took place at the 34th Annual International Geological Congress in Brisbane, Australia, this past summer.

The commission was established in 1967 to promote research and international cooperation in the studies of the history of earth sciences. Taylor is the 10th president since its founding and the first president from the United States.

Taylor joined the OU College of Arts and Sciences in 1967, retiring from the History of Science Department in 2006. He served as chair of the department for 14 years.

Taylor’s research focuses on the early development of geology in the 18th century, particularly in France.

For more information, visit www.inhigeo.org.

The department learned recently that Jared Buss has been awarded the 2012-2013 History of Science Society / NASA Fellowship. The History of Science Society Fellowship in the History of Space Science, supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) History Division, funds a nine-month research project that is related to any aspect of the history of space science, from the earliest human interest in space to the present. The program is broadly conceived and includes the social, cultural, institutional and personal context of space-science history. The fellowship supports Jared’s dissertation research, focused on the work and world of the science writer and space promoter Willy Ley. Because Ley wrote many pieces on natural history as well as on space, the dissertation incorporates literature on natural history and nature writing, and on Romantic values in science. Jared’s PhD supervisor is Professor Hunter Heyck.