Ruth Schwartz Cowan Awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science
November 2007
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Janice and Julian Bers Professor and Chair of the Department of History and Sociology of Science, has been awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to a scholar who has made distinguished contributions to the field.
Cowan, a historian of science, technology and medicine, has authored numerous articles and four books, including The Social History of American Technology (with Neil M. Cowan) and Our Parents' Lives: The Americanization of Eastern European Jews. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Phi Beta Kappa Lecturer and a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology. Cowan has previously been awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Medal and the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology. Her current projects include a history of genetic screening and a history of American women engineers.
Founded in 1975, the Society for Social Studies of Science is the oldest and largest scholarly association devoted to understanding science and technology.