My research and teaching focus on the ways in which science intersects in reciprocal ways with its cultural context. I previously taught at Simmons College, Syracuse University, and held visiting appointments at Cornell, Harvard, Ludwig Maximillian University (Munich), University of Melbourne, and the University of Auckland. 

My interest in women and gender issues led me to chair women’s committees in the History of Science Society and the Organization of American Historians as well the Feminist Studies Program at Minnesota. Among other offices, I have been President of the History of Science Society and served on the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

My research investigates early development of scientific institutions, the ways in which self-described amateurs (perhaps today’s citizen scientists) participate in science, the role of women in science, the activities of museums as they reflect and teach science, the gendered ways science often operates, and the integration of science into school curricula.

Retired but still engaged, serves in a Presidential rotation (2025-2028) for the University of Minnesota Retiree Association and as Program Chair, encouraging community engagement with experts among its 850+ members.

Natural sciences in the United States; institutional and cultural contexts (amateurs, museums, education); women, gender and science

Honors and Awards

 Sarton Medal, History of Science Society, 2018
Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize, History of Science Society, 2015
Outstanding Alumni Award, Valparaiso University 2011
Ada Comstock Outstanding Woman Scholar, 2011
Fulbright Senior Fellowship, University of Auckland, 2008
President's Award for Outstanding University Service, 2004
Mullen/Spector/Truax Women's Leadership Award, UMN, 2002
George Taylor Distinguished Service Award, Institute of Technology, 2000
UMN TEL Award: Outstanding Computer Aided Course Project, 1998
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Selected Publications

“Qualified Mentorship: Josephine Tilden and the Minnesota Seaside Station, 1901-1907,” Journal of the History of Biology (July 4, 2022). Open source at https://rdcu.be/cQZlN 

“Mobile Botany: Education, Horticulture, and Commerce in New York City, 1890 to the 1930s” Mobile Museums: Collections in Circulation, ed. Felix Driver and Mark Nesbitt (London: University College London Press, 2021), pp. 178-204. Volume as open access at https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/141630; essay at https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18kc0px.14

“Teaching and Exhibition on Nineteenth-Century Science Campuses,” Science Museums in Transition: Cultures of Display in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America, ed. Carin Berkowitz and Bernard Lightman (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2017). https://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=36692

“Museum Perceptions and Productions: American Migration of Maori Hei-tiki,” Endeavor (2016): 3-17. Open access at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160932716300035?via%3Dihub

"Creative Niche Scientists: Women Educators in North American Museums, 1880-1930" Centaurus (May 2013), 153-174.

Science and the American Century: Readings from Isis, edited with David Kaiser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo14365516.html

Teaching Children Science: Hands-On Nature Study in North America, 1890-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Order from University of Chicago Press.