Participant Info

First Name
Melinda
Last Name
Baldwin
Affiliation
American Institute of Physics
Website URL
melinda-baldwin.com
Keywords
History of science, history of physics, scientific communication, scientific journals, science funding
Additional Contact Information
Alternate email: melinda.c.baldwin@gmail.com

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a historian of science currently based out of Washington, DC, where I am an editor at Physics Today. My research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of science since 1800, with a particular focus on scientific communication. I am a former member of the teaching faculty at Harvard University, and I have held fellowships from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Situating Science Cluster grant at York University. I earned my PhD in History from Princeton University.

Recent Publications

Making “Nature”: The History of a Scientific Journal (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

Melinda Baldwin, “Scientific autonomy, public accountability, and the rise of ‘peer review’ in the Cold War United States.” Forthcoming from Isis (anticipated publication in 2019).

Melinda Baldwin, “In referees we trust?” Physics Today 70 no. 2 (2017): 44-49. Available online at http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.3463.

Melinda Baldwin, “Keeping in the race’: physics, publication speed and national publishing strategies in Nature, 1895–1939,” British Journal for the History of Science 47 no. 2 (2014): 257–279.  Available online at http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0007087413000381.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Expertise by Geography
United Kingdom, United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Government, Higher Ed, Public History, Science