Awards

National Academies - 1999

American Association for the Advancement of Science

About Noretta Koertge

Noretta Koertge was born October 7, 1935 in Olney, Illinois. She is a philosophy of science educator and novelist. Koertge earned her B.S. in chemistry with honors from the University of Illinois in 1955, her M.S. from the University of Illinois in 1956 and her Ph.D. in philosophy of science from London University in 1969. She completed postgraduate fellowships with the National Science Foundation Summer Institute at the University of Iowa in 1961 and at the University of Michigan in 1962. From 1960-1963 she was an instructor in chemistry at Elmhurst College in Illinois and then spent one year as the chemistry section head at the American College for Girls in Istanbul, Turkey. From 1969-1970 she was assistant professor of philosophy of science at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. She joined the faculty at IU in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in 1970 as assistant professor. Koertge was promoted to associate professor in 1973 and professor in 1981. She held visiting lecturer positions at Sir John Cass College in London in 1967, at Borough Polytechnic Institute in London in 1968 and Harvard University in 1973.

Koertge is known for her work on Karl Popper and scientific rationality. She was the editor of Nature and Causes of Homosexuality: A Philosophic and Scientific Inquiry, 1981 and author of Who Was That Masked Woman?, 1981, Valley of the Amazons, 1984, Professing Feminism, 1995. She was editor-in-chief of the journal Philosophy of Science from 1999-2004, and editor-in-chief of The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography from 2004–2008. She received a John Dewey Senior Research Fellowship in 1983-1984 and was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999.