News and Notes

Matthew Laubacher, Arizona State University
2008 to 2009 Research Fellow

Miranda Paton, Cornell University
2007 to 2008 Research Fellow

The Center invites applications for one- or two-month Dissertation Research Fellowships and nine-month Dissertation Writing Fellowships. The application deadline is 11 February 2009. See www.pachs.net/fellowships for more information and for online application form.

Sarah Bridger Columbia University My dissertation covers the political arguments among scientists about Cold War weapons, scientists’ advice to politicians and military planners, and the personal ethical concerns of scientists engaged in research with potential weapons applications. A PACHS Dissertation Research Fellowship in the fall of 2008 supported my research on this topic at three PACHS member institutions, Princeton University, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society.

Nicholas Spicher Johns Hopkins University There was only one functioning college in British North America at the turn of the 18th century. By the American Revolution, eight more had been founded, and several more were chartered by 1800. What did these colleges teach? Who were the instructors, and on what sources did they base their teaching? What methods did they use? Until recently, many historians have assumed that the colonial colleges were intellectual backwaters whose only purpose was to train future clergy in the bare essentials of classical grammar.

Eric S. Hintz
University of Pennsylvania

Terry M. Christensen Oregon State University John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) was among the giants of 20th-century physics. Even so, Wheeler’s many contributions to the corpus of physics are, in my view, overshadowed by his contributions to the community of physicists. Here it is useful to bear in mind that knowledge is cumulative in nature. Today’s breakthrough is tomorrow’s building block, upon which future discoveries will be predicated. A proficient mentor, by contrast, may well have a multiplicative influence on generations of physicists.

Mary Peterson Zundo Ph.D. Candidate, Art History University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign The aim of my research has been to examine the ways in which the scientific classification of the Trans-Mississippi West and the rhetoric of westward travel shaped how many American artists and their audiences understood—visually and conceptually—their nation in terms of mapping the land for empire.

Melissa J. Grafe Institute of the History of Medicine Johns Hopkins University My research into the 18th-century medical practices of the Archer family of Harford County, Maryland had led me unexpectedly to Philadelphia. With the generous support of the PACHS fellowship, which gave me the funding for a month to research at multiple archives, and the support and advice of the PACHS executive director Babak Ashrafi and his assistant Bonnie Clause, I started my search at the University of Pennsylvania’s Rare Book and Manuscript library on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt library. Dr.

Susan Kaplan, co-organizer of the North By Degree conference describes the film festival, Arctic Exploration in Motion, that will follow the conference. Here is the audio.