The History of Science Society (HSS) Announces Its Prize Recipients

Online, November 9, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Cleveland-OH: The History of Science Society (HSS) has announced the recipients of its prestigious prizes at their annual meeting, held November 3-6 in Cleveland, OH.

The recipient of the Sarton Medal for Lifetime Achievement was Robert J. Richards, Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago. The Sarton Medal is the highest honor conferred by the HSS, in recognition of a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar, selected from the international community.

Eleanor Robson received the Pfizer Prize for best scholarly book for "Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History," published in 2008 by Princeton University Press. First awarded in 1959, the Pfizer Prize is funded by Pfizer, Inc. It recognizes an outstanding book in the history of science and is the highest honor awarded by the HSS for a single work of scholarship. Dr. Robson is a Reader in History and Philosophy of Science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, Vice-Chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and a Fellow of Darwin College.

The Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize was awarded to Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science at the University of California, San Diego and to Erik M. Conway, historian of science at the California Institute of Technology, for their book "Merchants of Doubt," published in 2010 by Bloomsbury Press. The Davis Prize recognizes an outstanding book in the history of science intended for a general audience.

Nuria Valverde Perez, Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico, received the Derek Price/Rod Webster Prize for the best article in the HSS's journal, ISIS, for "Small Parts: Crisóstomo Martínez (1638-1694), Bone Histology, and the Visual Making of Body Wholeness." ISIS, Vol. 100, No. 3, (September 2009), 505-536.

The Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize was given to Pamela Henson, Director of the Institutional History Division at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and Historian in Residence at American University. The prize is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to the teaching of history of science.

Yi-Li Wu, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, was this year's recipient of the Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize for her book "Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China," published in 2010 by University of California Press. The Rossiter Prize recognizes an outstanding book (or, in even-numbered years, article) on the history of women in science.

And, finally, the HSS has awarded the Nathan Reingold Prize to James H. Bergman, a graduate student in the history of science at Harvard University, for his essay "Fighting Chance: The Science of Probability and the Forecast Controversy Between the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory and the U.S. Signal Service, 1884-1890." The prize honors graduate student essays on the history of science and its cultural influences.

The HSS is the world's largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in historical context. Over 3,000 individual and institutional members across the world support the Society's mission to foster interest in the history of science and its social and cultural relations.