Featuring
UCLA
California Institute of Technology
Peter Sachs Collopy is University Archivist and Head of Archives and Special Collections at Caltech.
University of Oslo
Robert Marc Friedman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo. He is the author of The Politics of Excellence: Behind the Nobel Prize in Science.
University of Pennsylvania
Susan Lindee is Janice and Julian Bers Professor and Department Chair of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include Suffering Made Real, The DNA Mystique, Moments of Truth in Genetic Medicine, and Rational Fog: Science and Technology in Modern War.
San Francisco State University
Sue V. Rosser is Provost Emerita and Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University. She is the author of 14 books and 140 journal articles, many of which address issues of gender in science, technology, and medicine.
Sacramento City College
Ruth Lewin Sime is Professor Emerita in the Department of Chemistry at Sacramento City College. She is the author of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics.
Related publications from our speakers:
Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics by Ruth Lewin Sime; University of California Press, 1997.
The Politics of Excellence: Behind the Nobel Prize in Science, by Robert Marc Friedman; W.H. Freeman, 2001.
Breaking into the Lab: Engineering Progress for Women in Science, by Sue V. Rosser; NYU Press, 2012.
Academic Women in STEM Faculty: Views beyond a decade after POWRE, by Sue V. Rosser; Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
News stories related to this forum:
Caltech to Remove the Names of Robert A. Millikan and Five Other Eugenics Proponents from Buildings, Honors, and Assets - Caltech Weekly, January 15, 2021
Caltech confronted its racist past. Here's what happened — Nature, November 10, 2021
Insights from the Collections
The Consortium's collections provide many opportunities to learn more about the history of women in science, eugenics, and the Nobel Prizes.
Our cross-instiutional search tool allows researchers to investigate materials across multiple institutions from a single interface. With more than 4.4 million catalog records of rare books and manuscripts, the Consortium's search hub offers scholars and the public the ability to identify and locate relevant materials.
Search the Consortium search hub.
Some archival materials related to this topic include:
Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, 1898-1950, American Philosophical Society
Robert A. Millikan Papers, Caltech
Human Betterment Foundation Records, Caltech
American Eugenics Society Records, American Philosophical Society
See also recent work from our fellows:
Joanna Behrman, A Comparative Analysis of Women's Higher Education in Physics
Tina Kibbe, Deviant Women, Toxic Bodies: Eugenics and Public Health in the United States, 1900-1950
Michael Chwe is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at UCLA. He is the author of Jane Austen, Game Theorist and Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge.