I am a professor in the History Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara where I research, write, and teach about the histories of technology and science.

My personal (non-UCSB) web page is here…

I am not currently accepting new graduate students. 

 

  • Technology and science after 1945 (primarily US)
  • The intersections of art, technology, and science
  • Technological communities
  • “Emerging” technologies

I have a new book titled Making Art Work (The MIT Press, 2020); it looks at art-technology collaborations during the 1960s-90s with the focus being the activities and experiences of the engineers and scientists who paired up with artists. Connected to this, I have a courtesy appointment with UCSB’s Media Arts and Technology program. I am also involved with several projects associated with the Getty Research Institute’s new Pacific Standard Time initiative which is focused on art and science.

I like to connect my historical research to contemporary issues associated with technology and science, including debates about the “future of work,” automation, and predictions of a “4th Industrial Revolution.” As part of this work, I have a new book project, called “README”, under contract with The MIT Press. It asks the question: How did computing become known to the general public as computers transformed from “giant brains” to “everything machines”? It is, in other words, a “book about books about computing.”

Finally, I co-edit the “Studies in the History of Technology” book series for The Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Books:

  • README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (The MIT Press; under contract and forthcoming)

 

  • Greedy Science: Creating Knowledge, Making Money, and Being Famous in the 1980s (Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming in 2025). This collection, co-edited with my colleague Michael D. Gordin, looks at the intersection of money and science in the 1980s.

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Selected Articles:

My research informs my teaching. I offer a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses including:

  • Science and the Modern World (History 20)
  • Technology and the Modern World (History 22)
  • The Atomic Age (History 105A)
  • Histories of Information and Computing (106C)
  • Machines, People, and Politics: Histories of Modern Technologies (History 109T)

In addition, I teach some more specialized small-enrollment undergraduate courses as well as graduate readings and research seminars.

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