The Department of the History of Science is a lively interdisciplinary community of scholars and students who seek to advance understanding of science, technology, and medicine in their historical and social contexts. 

Our faculty and students come from diverse backgrounds and employ diverse approaches. We examine the past and present workings of science, technology, and medicine, the basis of their authority, the ethical and political dimensions of their regulation and applications, and the relationships among them and larger intellectual, cultural, social, and political trends and changes. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are fundamental to the Department’s mission and identity, not only as moral and social goods, but because they make possible the advancement of knowledge central to our understanding of history and the world about us.