Awards

Distinguished Professor - 2009

Titled Professor - 2004 - 2024

Ruth Halls Professor History and Philosophy of Science

Guggenheim Fellow - 1999

About William R. Newman

William R. Newman (Ph.D. Harvard, 1986) http://mypage.iu.edu/~wnewman/ has been in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at IU since 1996. Newman has published seven books, of which the most recent are Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature and the laboratory notebooks and letters of the early American scientist George Starkey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Another book, Atoms and Alchemy, a study of medieval and early modern matter theory and its contribution to chemical atomism, will appear with Chicago in 2006. Newman is also the principal investigator in a multi-year NSF-funded project to prepare an online edition of Isaac Newton's "chymical" manuscripts, which is being carried out with the support of IU's Digital Library Program. Newman's teaching at IU has centered mostly on the history of medieval and early modern "applied sciences," which included alchemy and astrology along with fields that are more familiar to moderns, such as medicine and engineering. His research also includes the history of medieval and early modern natural philosophy, material culture, and chemistry up to the nineteenth century. He was awarded Distinguished Professor in 2009.