People
This page presents UT faculty and researchers who work on various topics in History and Philosophy of Science, Medicine, or Technology. The list is organized by relevant courses taught and books published.
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Sahotra Sarkar
Professor, Philosophy and Biology
Philosophy of BIOLOGY, environment, genetics, logical empiricism, Darwin.
Selected Books: Environmental Philosophy (2012), Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution (2007), Genetics and Reductionism (1998), Molecular Models of Life: Philosophical Papers on Molecular Biology (2005), Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy (2005), A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, co-ed. (2008), Decline and Obsolescence of Logical Empiricism: Carnap vs. Quine and the Critics, ed. (1996), The Legacy of the Vienna Circle, ed. (1996), Logic, Probability, and Epistemology: The Power of Semantics, ed. (1996), Logical Empiricism and the Special Sciences, ed. (1996), The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: From 1900 to the Vienna Circle, ed. (1996), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, co-ed. (2006).
Courses: BIO301C History of Biology, PHL363L Philosophy of Biology, PHL363L Darwin, Evolution, and Philosophy, PHL325C Environmental Ethics, PHL363L Darwin and Design, PHL316K Science and Philosophy, PHL363L Philosophy of Science.
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Alberto A. Martinez
Professor, History Director, HPS Certificate
History of physics and math, RELATIVITY, myths, Einstein, Pythagoras, Galileo, Bruno.
Selected Books: Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity (2009), Science Secrets: The Truth About Darwin’s Finches, Einstein’s Wife, and Other Myths (2011), The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths (2012), Negative Math: How Mathematical Rules Can Be Positively Bent (2005), Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo, and the Inquisition (2018).
Courses: HIS317N Discovery History, HIS322M History of Modern Science, HIS350L Einstein in an Age of Conflicts, HIS366N Biology, Behavior & Injustice, HIS350L Race, Science, and Racism, TC302/UGS303 Scientists and Religion in History, HIS329U Perspectives on Science and Math.
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Cory F. Juhl
Professor, Philosophy Associate Chair, Philosophy
Professor PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, mathematics, philosophy of mind and religion.
Book: Analyticity, co-author (2009).
Courses: PHL316K Science and Philosophy, PHL313 Introductory Symbolic Logic, PHL322 Science and the Modern World, PHL363L Topics in Philosophy of Science, PHL363L Space, Time, and Infinity, PHL375M Philosophy of Math and Physics, PHL363L Outer Limits of Reason, PHL344M Philosophy of Mathematics.
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Bruce J. Hunt
Professor, History
History of physics, ELECTRICITY, telegraphy, Maxwell, FitzGerald, Heaviside, Kelvin.
Books: The Maxwellians (1994), Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein (2010), and, Imperial Science: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire (2021).
Courses: HIS322D Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century, HIS322M History of Modern Science, HIS350L The Galileo Affair, HIS329U Perspectives on Science and Math, UGS303 Science and Art: Then and Now, HIS350L Electrification, HIS329P History of the Atomic Bomb.
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Abena Dove Osseo-Asare
Professor, History
History of African MEDICINE, global health, biotechnology, nuclear energy.
Books: Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa (2014), Atomic Junction: Nuclear Power in an African Suburb (2019).
Courses: HIS350L Medicine In African History, HIS381 Drugs In World History, HIS366N Global History Of Disease.
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Megan Raby
Associate Professor, History
History of Biology, tropical ECOLOGY, biodiversity, environmental history.
Book: American Tropics: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science (2017).
Courses: HIS322G History of the Modern Life Sciences, HIS350L Global Environmental History, HIS329U Perspectives on Science and Math.
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Erika Bsumek
Professor, History
History of the ENVIRONMENT, Native Americans, anthropology, and engineering.
Books: Indian-made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace (2008), Nation States and the Global Environment: New Approaches to International Environmental History, co-ed. (2013), The Concrete West: Engineering Society and Culture in the Arid West, 1900-1970 (in progress).
Courses: HIS392 Environmental History, HIS350R Environmental History of North America, HIS317L Building America.
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John Lisle
Lecturer, Core Texts & Ideas
History of science; the American intelligence community, science & religon.
Book: The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare (2023).
Courses: CTI 375 • Sci/Religion: Newton-Present. CTI 371S • Science And Religion To Newton.
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Jeffrey C. Leon
Lecturer, Philosophy
Philosophy of science, medicine, ETHICS, and society, Descartes, Kant.
Book: Science and Philosophy in the West (1999).
Courses: PHL325M Medicine, Ethics, and Society, PHL322 Science and the Modern World, PHL329U Perspectives on Science and Math.
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Volker Bromm
Professor, Astronomy
ASTRONOMY and its history and philosophy.
Selected Books: The First Stars and Galaxies: Challenges for the Next Decade, co-ed. (2010), The First Galaxies: Theoretical Predictions and Observational Clues, co-ed. (2012).
Course: AST350L History and Philosophy of Astronomy.
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Josh Dever
Professor, Philosophy
Logic, SCIENTIFIC REASONING, and philosophy of language.
Selected Course: PHL313Q Logic And Scientific Reasoning.
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Lesley Dean-Jones
Professor, Classics
ANCIENT MEDICINE and philosophy.
Books: Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science (1994), A Commentary on the Pseudo-Aristotle Historia Animalium Book X (in progress). Co-editor with Ralph Rosen, Ancient Concepts of the Hippocratic. Proceedings of the XIIIth Colloquium Hippocraticum (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
Course: CC348 Ancient Greek Medicine.
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J. Brent Crosson
Associate Professor, Religious Studies
ANTHROPOLOGY of religion, science, and secularism, especially in the Caribbean. His current research compares the ethics of spiritual healers and petroleum geologists in relation to subterranean energy in Trinidad.
Course: RS373/ANT324L Science, Magic, Religion.
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David Prindle
Professor, Government
POLITICS of EVOLUTION, Darwin, Stephen J. Gould.
Selected Book: Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution (2009).
Course: CTI372 Darwin and the Politics of Evolution.
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Katherine Dunlop
Associate Professor, Philosophy
Philosophy of MATHEMATICS and science, Newton, Kant, Descartes, space and time, early modern philosophy.
Selected Courses: PHL329L Early Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant, PHL344M Philosophy Of Mathematics.
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Joshua Roebke
Lecturer, Science Writing
History of MODERN PHYSICS, science writing.
Book: The Invisible World: The Story of Physics in the Twentieth Century (in progress).
Selected Course: NSC110H Natural Sciences Honors Course.
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Lydia Pyne
Writer and Historian
History of ANTHROPOLOGY, fossils, museums, and material culture. Selected Books: Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils (2016), The Last Lost World: Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene (2012).
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Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Professor, History
History of the Spanish empire and early modern science in the ATLANTIC world.
Selected Books: Nature, Empire, And Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian World (2006), How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (2001).
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Richard Fitzpatrick
Professor, Physics
Physics, ancient Greek GEOMETRY and Ptolemy’s astronomy.
Selected Books: Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, trans. and ed. (2007), A Modern Almagest: An Updated Version of Ptolemy's Almagest (2010).
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Mark Raizen
Professor, Physics
Experimental PHYSICS, atom optics, quantum physics, history of physics, Maxwell, statistical mechanics, Brownian motion.
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Lina del Castillo
Associate Professor, History
Science, Technology, and Medicine in Latin America; History of Geography and Cartography.
Book: Crafting Republic for the World: Scientific, Geographic, and Historiographic Inventions of Colombia (2018).
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Neil Kamil
Associate Professor, History
History of MATERIAL CULTURES, artisans, and alchemists.
Selected Book: Fortress of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the Huguenots' New World (2005).
Retired/Past Faculty
These are or were members of our community who taught relevant courses at UT Austin.
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Robert Abzug
Professor, History
History of PSYCHOLOGY and psychiatry, religion, William James.
Selected Book: William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, ed. (2012).
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Linda Henderson
Professor, Art History
History of ART in relation to geometry, science, and technology.
Books: The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (1983/2013), From Energy to Information: Representation in Science and Technology, Art, and Literature, co-ed., (2002), Duchamp in Context: Science and Technology in the Large Glass and Related Works (1998).
Course: UGS303 Science and Art: Then and Now.
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Van Herd
Lecturer, History and Mathematics
History of physics and mathematics, Newton, SCIENCE AND RELIGION, Baroque science, neurophysiology.
Book: The Theology of Sir Isaac Newton (in progress).
Courses: HIS322M History Of Modern Science, HIS329U Perspectives on Science & Math, HIS362G Women In Science.
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Larry Laudan
Lecurer, Law and Philosophy
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE and LAW.
Selected Books: Science and Relativism (1990), Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth (1977), Truth, Error, and Criminal Law: An Essay in Legal Epistemology (2006), Science and Values: The Aims of Science and their Role in Scientific Debate (1984), Beyond Positivism and Relativism (1996), Science and Hypothesis: Historical Essays on Scientific Methodology (1981), Scrutinizing Science: Empirical Studies of Scientific Change, co-ed. (1988), Mind and Medicine: Problems of Explanation and Evaluation in Psychiatry and the Biomedical Sciences, ed. (1983), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, co-ed. (1983).
Past Courses: PHL322 Science and the Modern World, LAW397S Differing Roles of Evidence in Science and in Law.
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Rachel Laudan
Researcher, History and Philosophy
History of FOOD SCIENCE, philosophy of science, scientific progress, history of geology.
Selected Books: Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History (2013), The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage (1996), From Mineralogy to Geology: The Foundations of a Science 1650-1830 (1987), The Nature of Technological Knowledge. Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant? ed. (1984), The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science, co-ed. (2003), Scrutinizing Science: Empirical Studies of Scientific Change, co-ed. (2012).
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Philippa Levine
Professor, History
History of EUGENICS, medicine, and science ethics in society, human experimentation.
Selected Books: Eugenics: a Very Short Introduction (2017), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, co-ed. (2012).
Courses: HIS365G Science, Ethics, and Society; HIS 322S History of Genetics and Eugenics.
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Alexander Mourelatos
Professor Emeritus, Classics
Ancient philosophy and early GREEK SCIENCE, the Pre-Socratics.
Selected Books: The Route of Parmenides (1970), The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (2014).
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Megan Seaholm
Senior Lecturer, History
History of MEDICINE and especially women’s health care.
Past Courses: HIS350R: Women, Health and Medicine in American History, HIS350R Women In Sickness & Health.
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Steven Weinberg
Professor, Physics
PHYSICS, astronomy, modern physics and its history.
Selected Books: To Explain the World: Discovery of Modern Science (2016), The Discovery of Subatomic Particles (2003), Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (2001).
Past Course: PHY341 History of Physics.
