Academic interests
I'm interested in the relationship between science, politics, and environments in the twentieth century, particularly in the Arctic and the Antarctic. This has taken me in some interesting and often unexpected directions. My first book was about the role of science in British, Swedish, and Norwegian Antarctic exploration before the Antarctic Treaty, and I then co-edited volumes on the geosciences in the Cold War, on Antarctica and the humanities, and the politics of Antarctica (a rebooted second edition is underway!) Most recently I was co-editor of the first Cambridge History of the Polar Regions and the volume Colonialism and Antarctica. I am currently finishing up a co-authored manuscript on the Arctic Institute of North America and the idea of "orderly development" from around 1945-75.
Courses taught
- IDE2019
- IDE1105
- IDE2100 IDE2100 – The history of the ideas of sex and gender
- EXFAC03-HUM – Examen facultatum
Background
I was born and raised in Sydney, Australia, and started my academic journey at the University of New South Wales, before completing a PhD in history (history of science) at Stanford University. I held postdocs at the University of Strasbourg and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm before working as a researcher at KTH, and eventually as an associate professor of modern history at the University of Stavanger. Along the way I have been a visiting researcher at the Centre for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, at the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway (University of London), and the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University.
Selected research projects
- Greening the Poles: Science, the Environment, and the Creation of the Modern Arctic and Antarctica (European Research Council, 2017-2022)
- How Arctic Science Survived -- And Thrived -- in the Cold War (Swedish Research Council, 2015-2019)
- Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities (NordForsk Centre of Excellence, 2016-2021)
Appointments
- President-Elect, European Society for the History of Science
- Co-editor, Cambridge Elements in Arctic and Antarctic Studies