CURRICULUM VITAE
BARBARA J. BECKER
Composing a Life: some personal thoughts on writing historical biography
-EDUCATION-
1993 | PhD, History of Science, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
dissertation:
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1971 | Master of Liberal Arts, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD |
1968 | AB, Physics, Goucher College, Towson, MD |
-PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS-
History of Science Society International Society for the History and Philosophy of Science in Science Teaching American Astronomical Society |
-PROFESSIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND ACTIVITIES-
2014 | Book Review: Catchers of the Light: Forgotten Lives of the Men and Women who First Photographed the Heavens, by Stefan Hughes. Paphos, Cyprus: ArtDeCiel Publishing, 2013; for Journal for the History of Astronomy. |
2013 | Book Review: Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters, by Wolfgang Steinicke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; for Annals of Science. |
2013 | Book Review: An Observer of Observatories: The Journal of Thomas Bugge's Tour of Germany, Holland and England, by Kurt Møller Pedersen and Peter de Clercq (eds). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2010; and Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel, by Michael Hoskin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011; for Annals of Science. |
2012 | Book Review: The Great Melbourne Telescope, by Richard Gillespie. Melbourne: Museum Victoria, 2011; for Isis. |
2010 | Book review: The Day We Found the Universe, by Marcia Bartusiak. New York: Pantheon Books, 2009; for Journal for the History of Astronomy. |
2009 | Book review: The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain, by Jessica Ratcliff. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008; for Victorian Studies. |
2005 | Proposal Reviewer, Longman Publishers; manuscript reviewer, British Journal for the History of Science. |
2004 - 2007 | Member, Hazen Prize Committee, History of Science Society. |
2002 - 2003 | Co-editor, Astronomy section, Dictionary of Nineteenth-century British Scientists, Thoemmes Press. |
2002 - 2005 | Proposal Reviewer, Science and Technology Studies Division, National Science Foundation. |
2001 - 2004 | Member, History of Astronomy Committee, Astronomical Society of the Pacific. |
1998 - 2003 | Member, North American Editorial Board of the International Journal of Science Education. |
Summer 1998 | Book review: Whatever Shines should Be Observed by Susan M. P. McKenna-Lawlor. Dublin: Samton Limited, 1998; for Journal for the History of Astronomy. |
Spring 1998 | Historical advisor to British broadcasting group preparing television series on women in science. |
Summer 1996 | Manuscript review; for Isis, journal for the History of Science Society. |
1994 - 1997 | Member, Executive Committee of the History of Astronomy Division, American Astronomical Society. |
1994 - 1997 | Member, Committee on Education, History of Science Society. |
-PUBLICATIONS-
2014 | Selected Correspondence of William Huggins. London: Pickering and Chatto. |
2013 | Historic Photographs by William and Margaret Lindsay Huggins. In Journal for the History of Astronomy 44, pp. 481-44. |
2011 | Unravelling Starlight: William and Margaret Huggins and the Rise of the New Astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Selected by the American Astronomical Society's History of Astronomy Division to receive the 2015 Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize. |
2010 | From Dilettante to Serious Amateur: William Huggins' Move into the Inner Circle. In Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 13, pp. 112-19. |
2004 | Biographical essays on William Huggins, and Margaret Lindsay Huggins. In The New Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. |
2004 | Biographical essays on William Huggins, and Margaret Lindsay Huggins. In Dictionary of Nineteenth-century British Scientists vol. 2, pp. 1021-1029. Thoemmes Press. |
2003 | La spettroscopia e la nascita dell'astrofisica [Spectroscopy and the Rise of Astrophysics]. In S. Petruccioli (Ed.), La Storia della Scienza, Vol. VII: L'Ottocento, pp. 265-281. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. |
2003 | Celestial Spectroscopy: Making Reality Fit the Myth. In Science 301 (No. 5638, 5 Sep 2003), pp. 1332-1333. Selected to appear in Dava Sobel, (Ed.), The Best American Science Writing: 2004, pp. 182-187. HarperCollinsPublishers. |
2001 | Visionary Memories: William Huggins and the Origins of Astrophysics. In Journal for the History of Astronomy, 32, pp. 43-62. |
2001 | MindWorks: Making Scientific Concepts Come Alive—Final Report. WestEd. |
2000 | Priority, Persuasion, and the Virtue of Perseverance: William Huggins's Efforts to Photograph the Solar Corona without an Eclipse. In Journal for the History of Astronomy 31, pp. 223-243. |
2000 | MindWorks: Making Scientific Concepts Come Alive. In Science & Education 9, pp. 269-278. Reprinted, 2002. In J. J. Hirschbuhl and D. Bishop (Eds.), Computers in Education. 2002/2003, 10th ed., McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, Guilford, CT, pp. 129-133. |
2000 | MindWorks (Eight instructional modules for introductory high school physical science: Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Electricity and Magnetism, Light and Color, Atoms and Matter, Kinematics, Statics and Structures, and Tomorrow's Challenges). Kendall-Hunt Publishing Company. |
1997 | MindWorks: Making Scientific Concepts Come Alive Progress Report. In I. Winchester, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the First North American Regional Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching. University of Calgary. |
1996 | Biographical essays on George Biddell Airy, William Crabtree, David Gill, Edmond Halley, Thomas Hariot, Jeremiah Horrocks, and William Huggins, and summary essay on the Astronomers Royal. In J. Lankford (Ed.), Encyclopedia for the History of Astronomy. Garland Press. |
1996 | Margaret and William Huggins at work in the Tulse Hill Observatory. In P. Abir-Am, et al. (Eds.), Creative couples in science: Multidisciplinary perspectives, pp. 98-111. Rutgers University Press. |
1995 | With Younger-Flores, K., and Wandersee, J. H. MindWorks: Making scientific concepts come alive. In F. Finley, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Third International History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching vol. 1, pp. 115-125. The University of Minnesota. |
1993 | Meeting the needs of limited English proficient students in science instruction: Implications for curriculum framework development. Southwest Regional Laboratory. |
1992 | Incorporating primary source material in secondary and college science curricula. In K. Hills (Ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching vol. 1, pp. 69-76. The Mathematics, Science, Technology, and Teacher Education Group, Queens University, Ontario. |