Congratulations to Professor Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies and Provost of the Sixth College at the University of California, San Diego, has been recently awarded the Francis Bacon Prize in recognition of outstanding scholarship in the history of science and technology. This prize was established by The Francis Bacon Foundation at the California Institute of Technology in 2003 and is awarded biennially. Professor Oreskes is a distinguished historian of earth science and, a trained earth scientist herself, and a well-known consultant on issues concerning the environment. The author or editor of three important books, most notably on the history of plate tectonics and, recently, on the origins of American oceanographic research, Oreskes has held grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society, and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Science and Engineering. A recognized leader in her field, Professor Oreskes will formally receive the Bacon Medal, with the accompanying cash prize of $20,000, at the annual meeting of the History of Science Society, which will be held this year in Phoenix, Arizona this November. She will be in residence at Caltech during the spring of 2010 and will teach a course in the history of Cold War science. Oreskes will be organzing a conference on the subject that will be held at Caltech during her residence. The proceedings of the conference will be published in book form by Archimedes, which under the editorship of Jed Buchwald, is considered one of the most important publishers of research in the history of science and technology.