Alumni

The following is a list of CHSS (formerly called Conceptual Foundations of Science) alumni. Indicated when known are: the year in which the degree was granted, the dissertation committee, the dissertation title, and the last known position.

Jillian E. Foley, 2023
Adrian DS Johns (Chair), Michael Rossi, Keith Woodhouse (Northwestern)
Cryptology and Speculative Technopolitics in the 20th Century United States

Eamon Duede, 2023
Kevin Davey (Chair), Thomas Pashby, James Evans, Ian Foster
New Directions for a Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Harvard University

Biying Ling, 2022
Robert J. Richards (chair), Thomas Pashby, David Cahan
How “Quantity” Disappeared from Philosophies of Measurement: Perspectives from 19th century Experimental Sciences
Applied Data Fellow; The Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago

Eric M. Gurevitch, 2022
Whitney Cox (co-chair), Adrian DS Johns (co-chair), Lorraine Daston, Gary Tubb
"Everyday Sciences in Southwest India"
Postdoctoral Researcher, Vanderbilt University

Steven B. Server, MD PhD, 2022
Robert J. Richards (co-chair), Emilio Kourí (co-chair), Brodwyn Fischer
"A Test of Conscience: Navigating Mexico's servicio-médico social (1934-1940)"
Psychiatry Residency Training Program at UCLA-Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

Kristine Palmieri, 2022
Robert J. Richards (co-chair), Lorraine Daston (co-chair), John Boyer, Suzanne Marchand
"Philology as a Way of Knowing: Classical Philology in the Reformed German Universities, 1730-1830"
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Rank of Instructor 2022-24, Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago

Devin Gouvea, 2020
Robert J. Richards (Chair), William Wimsatt, Karl Matlin, Alan Love
“Essentially Dynamic Concepts and the Case of Homology.”
Assistant Professor, College of the Holy Cross

Parysa Mostajir, 2020
Richards (Chair), Rossi, Kitcher
“Volunteering Away Humanity: A Pragmatist Critique of  Scientism.”
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Case Western Reserve University

Ryan Dahn, 2019
Richards (Chair), Daston, Glaeser, Olesko
"The Forgotten Founder of Quantum Mechanics: The Science and Politics of Physicist Pascual Jordan, 1902–1980."
Books Editor at Physics Today

William H. Sterner, 2018
Richards (Chair), Wimsatt, Sloan
"The Science of Poetics and The Poetics of Science."
Director of The Computer Science Instructional Laboratory, University of Chicago

Adam Baim, 2018
Farquhar and Masco (co-chairs), Rossi
"Eye to Eye: Visuality and the Work of Vision in Ophthalmology."
Practicing physician, Washington University - Barnes-Jewish Hospital

Daniele Macuglia, 2016
Richards (chair), Stigler, Bertoloni Meli
"Calculus & Newtonianism in Italy, 1689-1742  People, Ideas, Institutions."
Assistant Professor, Peking University

Francis McKay, 2016
Farquhar (co-chair), Richards (co-chair), Masco, Raikhel
"Homo-Eudaimonicus: Affects, Biopower and Practical Reason."
Research Portfolio Lead (Health Determinants Research Collaboration), Gateshead Council

Marcia Holmes, 2014
Winter (chair), Richards, Sparrow
“Performing Proficiency: Applied Experimental Psychology and the Human Engineering of Air Defense, 1940-1965.”
Post-doctoral fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London

Zoe Nyssa, 2014
Knorr and Masco (chairs), Evans, Wimsatt, Richards.
“Endangered Logics: Conservation Science in the American Academy.”
Assistant Professor, Purdue University

Dana M. Rovang, 2013
Johns (chair), Richards, Gilman
“Conjuring Science: Performance Magicians, Natural Philosophy, and the Audience in Eighteenth-Century England, 1763-1800.”

Caitjan Gainty, 2012
Winter, Sparrow, Goldstein, Igo, Johns
“The Pursuit of “Happiness Minutes”: Medical Efficiency in the United States, 1910-1940.”
Lecturer in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at King’s College London.

Beckett Sterner, 2012
Richards and Wimsatt (co-chairs), Waters
“The Practice of Theorizing in Computational Biology: Function Information, and Mechanism.”
Assistant Professor, Arizona State University

Jennifer Karlin, 2012
Farquhar, Winter, Sunder Rajan, Carr
“Respacializing ‘The Clinic': Constructing Communities and Transforming Chicago’s Southsiders into Healthy Subjects.”
Assistant Professor & Associate Director, Predoctoral Education Program
Department of Family & Community Medicine
University of California, Davis

Alessandro Pajewski, 2012
Richards, Johns, Sloan
“The face of nature: Hume and Darwin on analogy and emotion.”
Consultant, Boston Consulting Group.

Vincent Wan, 2012
Wimsatt, Matlin, Perlman
“Causes, Maps, and Biology.”

Shirley A. Martin, 2012
Richards, Stigler, Gigerenzer
“Grounding Tools that Travel: Ideology, Research Style, and Imagined Community, in the Circulation of Inferential Statistics, 1918-1966.”

Cecelia Watson, 2011
Richards, Daston, Lear
“William James and John La Farge: The search for truth in 19th century art, science and philosophy.”
Faculty, The Language and Thinking Program, Bard College

Christopher Diteresi, 2010
Wimsatt and Richards (co-chairs), Griesemer
“Taming Variation: Typological Thinking and Scientific Practice in Developmental Biology.”
Assistant Professor in Philosophy, George Mason University.

Trevor R. Pearce, 2010
Richards and Wimsatt (co-chairs), Jablonski
“A Perfect Chaos': Organism-Environment Interaction and the Causal Factors of Evolution.”
Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Jonathan Tsou, 2008
Richards and Wimsatt (co-chairs), Hacking
“The Reality and Classification of Mental Disorders.”
The Marvin and Kathleen Stone Distinguished Professor of Humanities in Medicine and Science
Professor of Philosophy
Director — Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology
University of Texas - Dallas 

Christina Fradelos, 2008
Richards, Wimsatt, Gere
“The Last Desperate Cure: Electrical Brain Stimulation and its Controversial Beginnings.”
Vice President of Learning and Evaluation at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago.

J. Roman Arguello, AM 2008
Richards and Wimsatt, Advisors
“Bateson and the Refusal of the Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance.”
Richard Benton Lab, Center for the Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne.

Adam Shapiro, 2007
Richards, Johns, Numbers
“Losing the Word: the Scopes Trial, Biology Textbooks, and the Rise of Literalism.”
Lecturer in Intellectual and Cultural History, Birbeck – University of London.

Michael Frampton, M.D., 2007
Richards, Johns, Asmis
“The Study of Animal Motion from Greek Antiquity to The Latin Middle Ages, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1325″
Practicing physician, Michael Frampton, M.D. & Associates.

Debra Daugherty, 2007
Kadanoff, Stigler
“Elaborating The Crystal Concept: Scientific Modeling and Ordered States of Matter.”

Paul Mueller, S.J., 2006
Garber, Swerdlow, McMullan
“Marin Mersenne’s Questions Théologiques, Physiques, Morales et Mathematiques: Agenda and Structure, with an Annotated Translation.”
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University, Chicago.

Jessica Heineman-Pieper, 2005
Richards, Wimsatt, Woodward
“A Science of Persons: New Foundations for Human Agency.” (Jointly with Psychology.)
Assistant professor of Public Policy, George Mason University.

Claudia Wassmann, 2005
Richards, Guyer, Cacioppo
“The Science of Emotion: Studying Emotions in Germany, France and the US, 1860-1920.”
Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

Patrick Singy, 2004
Davidson, Goldstein, Richards
“Experiencing Medicine: An Epistemological History of Medical Practice and Sex in French Speaking Europe, 1700-1850.”

Matthew Frank, 2004
Tait, Geroch, Weinberger
“Aesthetics and Axioms in Constructive Mathematics and Differential Geometry.”
Founder, Aqueous Advisors; formerly Associate at Goldman Sachs.

John Huss, 2004
Richards, Wimsatt, Foote
“Experimental Reasoning in Non-Experimental Science: Case Studies from Paleobiology.”
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Ohio.

Scott Rolston, 2003
Richards, Stocking, Wimsatt
“Kroeber on Archeological Theory.”
Working in the American Embassy (State Department), Thailand.

Ku-Ming (Kevin) Chang, 2002
Debus, Richards, Fasolt, Weintraub
“The Matter of Life: Ernst Georg Stahl, 1659-1734.”
Permanent research fellow, Institute for History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Daniela Barberis, 2002
Richards, Stocking, Jones
“The Annee Sociologique and Neo-Kantian Philosophy in France.”
Assistant Professor of History of Science and Social Sciences, Shimer College.

Tracy Teslow, 2002
Richards, Stocking, Harris
“Representing Race to the Public: Physical Anthropology in Interwar American Natural History Museums.”
Associate Professor of History, University of Cincinnati.

John Simmons Ceccatti, 2001
Richards, Wimsatt, Kohler
“Science in the Brewery: Pure Yeast Culture and the Transformation of Brewing Practices in Germany at the End of the 19th Century.” 
History, Upper School, Germantown Friends School.

Michael Morse, 1999
Stocking, Richards, Dietler
“Redefining the Celts: Rival Disciplinary Traditions and the Peopling of the British Isles.”
Executive Director, The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.

Florence Hsia, 1999
Swerdlow, Garber, Alitto, Feingold
“French Jesuits and the Mission to China: Science, Religion, History.”
Professor, History of Science (Department Chair) & Integrated Liberal Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

David Millett, 1999
Richards, Wimsatt, Metz.
“Wiring the brain: from the excitable cortex to the EEG, 1870-1940.”
Program Director, Epilepsy - Hoag Neurosciences Institute.

Hsiang-Lin (Sean) Lei, 1999
Richards, Stocking, Kelley
“When Chinese Medicine Encountered the State: 1900-1949.” 
Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Andre Wakefield, 1999
Richards, Geyer, Goldstein, Clark
“The Apostles of Good Police: Cameralism and the Culture of Administration in Central Europe, 1656-1800.”
Professor of History, Pitzer College, Claremont, California.

Leland Giovannelli, 1999
Swerdlow, Richards, Mueller
“Aristotle’s Theory of Sexual Reproduction as it Emerges in His On the Generation of Animals.”
Director & Senior Instructor in the Herbst Program of Humanities, College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Kjell Hausken, 1998
Wimsatt (chair), Garber, Margolis
"Dynamic Multilevel Game Theory."
Professor, University of Stavanger, Norway

Cheryce Kramer, 1998
Daston, Richards, Goldstein
“A Fool’s Paradise: The Psychiatry of Gemuth in a Biedermeyer Asylum.”
Research Fellow, Darmstadt University of Technology.

Francesca Bordogna, 1997
Davidson, Richards, Daston
“The Historical Contexts of William James’s Pragmatism.”
Associate Professor of Liberal Studies at Notre Dame University.

Gregory Matthew Mikkelson, 1997
Wimsatt, Richards, Leibold
“Other Things Being Equal: Counterfactuals, Natural Laws, and Scientific Models; with Case Studies from Ecology.”
Associate professor of Philosophy, McGill University.

Brian Ogilvie, 1997
Daston, Richards, Fasolt
“Observation and Experience in Early Modern Natural History.”
Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Berna Eden Kilinc, 1997
Stigler, Daston, Garber, Gigerenzer
“The One and the Many of Frequentism.”
Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul, Turkey.

Paul White, 1996
Richards, Daston, Goldstein
“Thomas Henry Huxley: Making the Man of Science.”
Editor of the Darwin Letters Project and Research Associate, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University.

George Reisch, 1994
Richards, Garber, Stein, Smigelskis
“A History of the International Encyclopedia of Science.”
Adjunct Lecturer, School of Professional Studies, Northwestern University.

David Valone, 1994
Stocking, Richards, Debus
“The Dark and Tangled Recesses of Knowledge: Theology and the Moral Sciences at Cambridge, 1812-1837.”;
Professor of History, Quinnipiac University.

Kathy Cooke, 1994
Richards, Harris, Stocking
“An American Gospel of Social Evolution: Religion, Education, and Biology in the Thought of Edwin Grant Conklin.”
Professor of History, Quinnipiac University.

Christopher Cosans, 1993
Richards, Forster, Asmis, Wimsatt
“The Beginnings of Experimental Biology: Scientific Realism and Medicine in Antiquity.”

Loren Butler, 1992
Richards, Wimsatt, Harris
“Mathematical Physics and the American Mathematical Commmunity: Disciplinary Values, Professional Interests and the Place of Borderland Research, 1886-1940.”
Formerly lecturer at University of Pennsylvania; now deceased.

Louise Golland, 1991
Swerdlow, Richards, Schramm
“Leonhard Euler’s Contributions to the Method of the Variation of the Orbital Elements.”

Douglas Allchin, 1991
Wimsatt, Hull, Maull
“Resolving Disagreement in the Ox-Phos Controversy, 1961-1978″

Karen Wetmore, 1991
Richards, Debus, Harris
“The Evolution of Psychology from Moral Philosophy in the Nineteenth-century American College Curriculum.”

Jeffrey Schank, 1990
Wimsatt, Maull, Richards
“Computer Similation, Model Building and Experimental Design in Biology.” Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis.

Sherrie Lyons, 1990
Richards, Debus, Wimsatt
“The Evolution of Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolutionary Views.”

Jeffry Lee Ramsey, 1990
Wimsatt, Berry, Garber
“Metastable States: The Justification of Approximative Procedures in Reaction Kinetics, 1923-1947.”
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Chair, Smith College.

Robert Disalle, 1988
Stein, Malamant, Richards
“Space, Time, and Inertia in the Foundations of Newtonian Physics, 1870-1905.” Professor of Philosophy, Western Ontario University.

Sara Joan Miles, 1988
Richards, Debus, Wimsatt
“Evolution and Natural Law in the Synthetic Science of Clemence Royer.”

Martha Baldwin, 1987
“Athanasius Kircher and the Magnetic Philosophy.”

Elizabeth Knoll, 1987
Richards, King, Kazazos, Stocking
“Mental Evolution and the Science of Language: Darwin, Müller, and Romanes on the Development of the Human Mind.”
Assistant Provost for Faculty Appointments, Harvard University.

Regis Cabral, 1986
Richards, Debus, Swerdlow
“The Interaction of Science and Diplomacy: Latin America, the United States and Nuclear Energy, 1945-1955.”
Project manager, Uminova Center, Umeå University, Sweden.

Terra Ziporyn, 1985
King, Mann, Stocking
“The Popularization of Medicine: Medical Science in Popular American Magazines, 1870-1920.”
Currently freelance medical writer and editor.

Leland Estes, 1985
Debus, Richards, King
“The Role of Medicine and Medical Theories in the Rise and Fall of the Witch Hunts in England.”
Associate Professor of History at Chapman University.

Michael E. Mytilinaios, 1985
Tait, Slamen, Kurtz
“Priority Arguments and Models of Arithmetic.”
Professor at Athens University of Economics.

Martin Sereno, 1984
Wimsatt, Richards, Saddock
“‘DNA’ and Language: The Nature of the Symbolic- Representational System in Cellular Protein Synthesis and Human Language Comprehension.”
Professor of Psychology, Chair of Cognitive Neuroimaging, Birkbeck, University of London.

Kathleen Wellman, 1983
“Julien Offray de La Mettrie: Medicine in the Service of Philosophy.”
Dedman Family Distinguished Professor, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Southern Methodist University.

Bruce Stephenson, 1983
Swerdlow, Richards, Debus
“Kepler’s Physical Astronomy.”
Director of research, Adler Planatarium, Chicago.

Bonnie Kaplan, PhD, FACMI; 1983
Richards, Harris, Wimsatt
“Computers in Medicine, 1950-1980: The Relationship between History and Policy.”
Yale Center for Medical Informatics, Yale Bioethics Center Scholar, Yale Information Society Project Faculty Affiliated Fellow, Yale Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy Faculty Affiliate, Yale University

James Griesemer, 1983
Wimsatt, Kiester, Lande, Mueller, Richards, Van Valen, Wade
“Communication and Scientific Change: An Analysis of Conceptual Maps in the Macroevolution Controversy.”
Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at University of California, Davis.

Karen Parshall, 1982
Debus, MacLane, Richards
“The Contributions of J.H.M. Wedderburn to the Theory of Algebras, 1900-1910.”
Professor of History and Mathematics at University of Virginia.

Jon Jarrett, 1982
Malament, Mueller, Stein, Tait
“Bell’s Theorem and Local Realism.”
Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Illinois, Chicago.

Marcy Lawton, 1982
Kiester, Fitzpatrick, Mueller, Richards, Wade, Wimsatt
“Altruism and Sociobiology: A Critical Look at the Issue.”
Adjunct Professor of Biology, University of Alabama, Huntsville.

Gary Kahn, 1982
Wimsatt, McNeill, Toulmin
“Theory and Reality in Cognitive Psychology.”
Working as a consultant in information technology.

Paul Theerman, 1980
Richards, Toulmin, Swerdlow
“James Clerk Maxwell: Physicist and Intellectual in Victorian Britain.”
Director, Library and Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health at the New York Academy Of Medicine.

Robert J. Richards, 1978
Toulmin, Debus, King
“The Evolution of Behavior: Theories of Instinct in the Nineteenth Century with an essay on Animal Instinct and Intelligence Before Darwin.”
Professor in the Departments of History, Philosophy, and Psychology, University of Chicago.

David E. Leary, 1977
Toulmin, Bradbern, Debus
"The Reconstruction of Psychology in Germany, 1780-1850.”
University Professor, University of Richmond.

David Bantz, 1976
Wimsatt, Toulmin, Fine
“Does Physics Explain Chemistry.”
Professor of Philosophy, University of Alaska.

E. Roger Jones, 1976
Geroch, Fine, Malament
“Causal Anomalies and the Completeness of Quantum Theory.”
Professor of Philosophy at University of Kentucky.

Lindley Darden, 1974
Hull, Ravin, Wimsatt
“Reasoning in Scientific Change: The Field of Genetics at Its Beginnings.”
Professor of Philosophy at University of Maryland.

Nancy Maull, 1974
Wimsatt, Toulmin, Ravin
“Progress in Modern Biology: An Alternative to Reduction.”
Vice President,  Isaacson, Miller.

William Provine, 1970
“The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics.”
Professor of History and Biology at Cornell University, deceased.