Individual Scholar Page

Personal Info

Photo

About Me

I am working on several projects right now. My book project is on gendered forms of scientific practice in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. I am particularly invested in reconstructing the sophisticated nature of women’s scientific labor. The project started as a quest to think through the historical origins of the modern gender gap in the sciences, and as such I am attuned to the various cultural and social forces that have contemporaneously or retroactively obscured women’s scientific contributions.

I am also working on an article explaining the relationship between printing and anti-counterfeiting methods on colonial American currency, thanks to some printing blocks I encountered a few years back. I’m also trying to write about Sarah Mapps Douglass and geology in early-nineteenth-century Philadelphia and pedagogical uses of 3D technology. (I am one of the co-conveners of the Immersive Pedagogy symposium.)

I directed the Bryn Mawr Women in Science Project from 2017-19. This project used 3D technology to reconstruct the historical laboratories where women practiced science. It aimed to teach undergraduate students about the history of the college interpretive historical choices, women in science, and material culture. There is a WebGL site up. The student team and I have demonstrated an immersive virtual reality version in various places, including Bucknell’s Digital Scholarship Conference, the American Historical Association’s Annual Meeting, and at Wellesley College.

 

Recent Publications

“Immersive Pedagogy: Developing a Decolonial and Collaborative Framework for Teaching and Learning in 3D/VR/AR,” The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, Issue Seventeen. (With Lorena Gauthereau, Emma Slayton, and Alex Wermer-Colan)
<https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/immersive-pedagogy-developing-a-decolonial-and-collaborative-framework-for-teaching-and-learning-in-3d-vr-ar> (2020)

“Technology,” Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania Press special keyword issue. <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/707756> (2018)

“Historical Thinking for Digital Projects: Teaching Research Skills with the Mary Whitall Worthington Diaries,” College Women: Documenting the History of Women in Higher Education <https://www.collegewomen.org/node/17209> (2018)

Review of Kimberly Tolley’s Heading South to Teach, North Carolina Historical Review, Vol XCIV, No. 1,  Jan 2017, pp 101-2.

New Context for Teaching Science to African American Girls in Philadelphia, Beyond the Reading Room: Library Company Blog <http://librarycompany.blogspot.com/
2016/05/new-context-for-teaching-science-to.html> (2016)

“Astronomy,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,                   <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/astronomy/>                 (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Chemistry,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,                  <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/chemistry/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print.)

“Dentistry and Dentists,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,  <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/dentistry-and-dentists/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Entomology (The Study of Insects),” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,              <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/entomology-study-of-insects/ > (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Franklin Institute,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,  <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/franklin-institute/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Herpetology (The Study of Reptiles and Amphibians),” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/herpetology/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Meteorology,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,

<http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/meteorology-study-of-the-atmosphere/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Ornithology (The Study of Birds),” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/ornithology/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“Scientific Societies,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,     <http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/scientific-societies/> (e-version, 2016. Peer-reviewed, forthcoming in print)

“The Pride of Science: Women and the Politics of Inclusion in Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania,” Science and Technology in the Keystone State cluster in Pennsylvania Legacies. Vol 15, no. 1 (2015), pp 6-11.

“Ghosts Everywhere, and of Every Color”: Spectral Visions at the Library Company, Beyond the Reading Room: Library Company Blog <http://librarycompany.blogspot.com/2014/10/ghosts-
everywhere-and-of-every-color.html> (2014)

Reading Sarah McGrath’s May 1834 Herbarium: Botanical Study at Science Hill Female Academy, The Field Book Project Blog, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History <http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/03/reading-sarah-mcgraths-may-1834-herbarium-botanical-study-at-science-hill-female-academy.html > (2012)

Souvenir of a “Splendid Exhibition”: Cupid as Drawn by Maelzel’s Automaton, the Juvenile Artist, Massachusetts Historical Society’s Object of the Month, <http://masshist.org/objects/2012january.php> (2012)

With Cornelia H. Dayton, Taking the Trade website, http://www.takingthetrade.org.

 

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

England, United States

Expertise by Chronology

18th century, 19th century, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

American Revolution, Book History, Gender, Pedagogy, Science, Women