Doctoral candidate Scott Prinster has received a Vilas Research Travel Grant in support of his dissertation that explores the scientific critique of religious authority as higher biblical criticism spread in the United States. He will use this grant for travel to Biola University in Los Angeles to study how evangelical Christians in the nineteenth and early twentieth century participated in the tensions between biblical and scientific knowledge. Congratulations Scott.

The department welcomes Pablo F. Gómez as an Assistant Professor. In addition to a Ph.D. in History of Medicine and Latin American History from Vanderbilt University in 2010, Pablo completed his M.D. at CES University, Medellín, Colombia, in 1994. His interests include History of Medicine and Science in the Atlantic World, Latin America, and the African Diaspora; Early modern corporeal epistemologies; and Race and medicine. Welcome Pablo!

Third-year graduate student Vicki Daniel (née Fama) received the best paper award for her paper titled "Heroes and Villains: Displaying and Viewing Bodies at the United States Army Medical Museum, 1862-1888" at the recent 2012 Washington University Graduate History Conference held October 26-27 in St. Louis. Organized by the university's history department with "The History of the Body" as its theme, the conference featured a dozen papers over two days. Well done Vicki!

Bradley Moore, a dissertator in the Joint PhD Program in History and the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, has been awarded the 2011 Roy Porter Prize. Presented by the Society for the Social History of Medicine and named in honor of the late Professor Roy Porter, this prize is given for the best original unpublished student essay.

Moore's essay, "For the People's Health: Ideology, Medical Authority, and Hygienic Science in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1952-62," looks at the effects of Soviet-inspired communism on approaches to public health and hygiene in the former Czechoslovakia, particularly the manner dialectical-materialism and “Pavlovian medicine” became tools of both continuity and change within established medical traditions. Congratulations Brad!

Read about Professor Rick Keller's research on the 2003 heat wave that gripped Europe and Paris in particular. Two recent news articles tell the whole story: "Forget blizzards and hurricanes, heat waves are deadliest" (UW-Madison News) and "Seely on Science: Heat waves more deadly than hurricanes, floods" (Wisconsin State Journal).

Meridith Beck Sayre and Dana A. Freiburger, both dissertators in History of Science, recently participated in a 5-day course offering hands-on training on computational techniques and tools in the humanities. The Humanities Hackathon: Computational Approaches to Cultural Analysis and Visualization was held at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery on July 23-27, 2012, and included UW staff, faculty, and students hailing from a range of departments, programs, and interest-areas.

Both found the course very useful with Beck Sayre commenting: "we covered several different tools and their applications in the Humanities Hackathon, but the instruction and conversations about network analysis were the most relevant for my immediate research. In my dissertation, I present a biography of a set of historically significant texts, known as the Jesuit Relations; right now, I'm mapping the trans-Atlantic network of scholars and institutions that preserved, archived and produced new editions of these texts during the 19th century. Although this doesn't involve a great deal of people and places (<100), I hope that network analysis tools, like Gephi, will help me visualize the network and, potentially, see new relationships."

Scott Prinster has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Panel on Theological Education of the Unitarian Universalist Association to conduct his research for the coming year. This award provides support to scholars who are committed to strengthening the Unitarian Universalism through research and publication, excellence in teaching, and educational leadership.

Scott's dissertation explores the scientific critique of religious authority as higher biblical criticism developed in the United States. By examining periodical literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, he is tracing the use of scientific language both to support and to refute the use of the Bible as an authority on the natural order. His advisor is Prof. Ronald L. Numbers.

Gregg A. Mitman, Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History and Environmental Studies and the Nelson Institute interim director, was awarded the William H. Welch Medal for his 2007 book Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape our Lives and Landscapes at the recent American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) annual meeting in Baltimore, Md.

Gregg's book, published by Yale University Press, offers an intimate portrait of how allergic disease has shaped American culture, landscape and life. It draws on environmental, medical and cultural history, and the life stories of people, plants and insects, to trace how America’s changing environment from the late 1800s to the present day has led to the epidemic growth of allergic disease.

The Welch Medal is awarded to one or more authors of a book (excluding edited volumes) of outstanding scholarly merit in the field of medical history, published during the five calendar years preceding the award. Congratulations Gregg!

Gregg Mitman and Paul Erickson have won he the 2012 Ralph Gomory Prize for their article Latex and Blood: Science, Markets, and American Empire which appeared in Radical History Review Spring 2010. This prize, made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes historical work on the effects of business enterprises on the economic conditions of the countries in which they operate. The award consists of a $5,000 cash prize, presented at the Business History Conference annual meeting.

Mitman is Interim Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and William Coleman Professor of History of Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a professor in the Department of Medical History, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies. Erickson (UW History of Science PhD '06) is an assistant professor of history and science in society at Wesleyan University.

Alexandra Rudnick has been awarded a NSF Graduate Fellowship. This award provides 3 years of support, tenable over a 5-year period and is intended for students at or near the beginning of their graduate study.

Before coming the University of Wisconsin in 2010, Rudnick studied environmental history at the University of Florida where she received a BA degree. Congrats Alex!

Doctoral Candidate Bridget Collins has received a Vilas Travel Grant and a Holtz Center Travel Grant to support two weeks of research at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, on the Children's Bureau records. Happy travels Bridget!