Ischia 2017 Students

Greetings all! I'm a PhD student in History of Science at Harvard and so far my work focuses on the use of animals in large-scale biomedical experimentation. In that vein, I've looked particularly at efforts to make pigs and dogs into useful experimental devices. I'm also quite interested in what remains implicit in "standards." My most recent project has involved thinking about aging (between species and not), so I have been interested in cycles of life both in terms of the cycles of individual lives, as well as, metaphorically, the cycles of laboratory life -- and the resonances between. I've got a little website herehere if anyone's got further curiosities. Excited to see everyone in Italy!

Hello everyone!

I'm a doctoral candidate at Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany) in the department of history and literary culture. My dissertation project, a visual history of developmental psychology, focuses on the intertwining of research practices, media, and developmental theory of Arnold Gesell, a leading developmental psychologist of the first half of the twentieth century. In this context, I'm particularly interested in cycles of life as a configuring element in the interrelation of concepts of early childhood, human development, and society. At Ischia, I'm very much looking forward to explore together with you various life cycles and their epistemological and political implications. See you soon!

Dear All! I’m Hanna, a 3rd year doctoral student in history of science at the University of Vienna, Austria. Before I started retraining as a historian of science in 2014, I studied microbiology, followed by a doctoral degree with a focus on immunology of parasitic diseases and a 4-year postdoc in veterinary parasitology with an emphasis on in vitro life cycles of parasites. Within my project (Immunofluorescence Microscopy and the Visual Culture of Cell Biology, 1970-1995), I’m tracing a substantial visual end epistemic change in cell biology starting in the 1970s. This change was initiated by the adoption of immunofluorescence microscopy for cytoskeleton research. I aim to reconstruct and understand how a new kind of image could be established as central evidence by researchers, publishers and industrial actors, and how the associated visual knowledge was distributed, canonized and utilized for purposes beyond scientific evidence, ultimately re-shaping the visual culture of cell biology. Different ‘cycles of life’ were of substantial importance for cell biologists using this imaging method, e.g. the cell cycle, dynamics of constantly reshaped structures like the cytoskeleton, the limitations due to fixation of cells for imaging developmental processes, or questions about artificiality of cell culture systems and their expalantory power for cell cycle dynamics in vivo.
I’m looking forward to meeting you soon on the island.
Hanna

Hello all!

My name is Mikey McGovern and I'm a first year PhD student in Princeton's Program in the History of Science. I did my MPhil at Cambridge in HPS a few years back, and spent the intervening time engaging ethnographically with the practice software development at a large industrial supply company, i.e. working. My interests, as such, largely lie where technology and the life and human sciences intersect: I've worked on early applications of digital computing in genetics, and am currently wrapping up a paper on cybernetics and sensory neurophysiology. I find cycles fascinating both for what they reveal and conceal. At a more philosophical level, the question of how relationships between the normal and pathological become embedded in models suggests itself, but it is also fruitful to think about cycles as communication tools that abstract messy processes into clean flows for diverse audiences. What kinds of attention do cycles warrant? In the short time I've had to think about what I should focus on for my dissertation, I've become interested in the field of system dynamics, in which the translation of hand calculations to computer models of complex cycles was an important proving ground, and which developed in dialogue with a general systems theory that frequently sought to learn from and biological systems. That's enough for now! Very excited to meet everyone in just about two weeks!!

I’m a first year PhD candidate in History and Philosophy of Science, and also work part time in Philosophy, in the Theory and Method in Biosciences node of the Charles Perkins Centre, at the University of Sydney. My thesis concerns historical conceptualisations of the octopus as an experimental animal, with a focus on attempts to map the neural correlates of behaviour. The octopus represents an interesting case because of its unique combination of a divergent nervous system and convergent behaviour. I also have a particular interest in the work of Jakob von Uexküll, who conducted some of the early experiments in this area at the Stazione Zoologica during the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1909, Uexküll reinterpreted his octopus experiments in light of his new concept of the Umwelt and, in 1920, formalised the Umwelt concept in terms of a ‘functional cycle’, a ‘Cycle of Life’ centred on the subject.

Hello! I'm Sarah Erman, a first-year PhD student at the Université Paris Diderot (P7). I have a background in Environmental history (MLit, University of St Andrews 2012), and worked for three years as a part-time researcher at the Pole de l'Histoire Environnementale (Namur, Belgium).
My current research focuses on Belgian and French female botanists and plant biologists between 1875 and 1940. I examine the way they participated in lab-based and field-based research in a variety of scientific institutions. Given that a number of the women I look at were interested in early ecology/biogeography/ethology, I am interested in the cyclic visions of the relations between organisms and their environment as well as the interplay between cycles of life and cycles of research. I look forward to meeting you in Ischia!

Greetings!

I'm Gustave Lester, a second-year doctoral student in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Before arriving there I received my undergraduate degree in History and Philosophy (minor) at the University of Idaho. I've recently completed my general examinations (covering broadly history of biology, history of earth sciences, and environmental history), and am now preparing my dissertation prospectus. My research interests focus on efforts to correlate and classify geological formations across large distances (like continents), and the ways life and earth (pre)history get imagined and utilized in this process, especially in the context of nineteenth century U.S. earth sciences. Accordingly, I am very eager to explore and discuss with you all the various usages of temporal metaphors, like cyclicity, in the history of the life sciences—particularly as they connect to the generation of socially meaningful prehistoric imaginaries.

Looking forward to meeting you all in person!

Hi everyone! I'm a PhD candidate in history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney. I'm interested in the influence of esoteric knowledge on scientific development, with an emphasis on occult operations in early modern medicine. I focus in particular on medical theories that conceptualise disease in terms of occult operations, as with diseases of the imagination and demonic diseases. I'm looking forward to exploring the various cycles of life and self-propagation that have been used to understand disease and its relation to the body. Looking forward to meeting everyone at Ischia!