Naomi Oreskes (Ph.D.,
Stanford, 1990) is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University
of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on the historical development
of scientific knowledge, methods, and practices in the earth and environmental
sciences, and on understanding scientific consensus and dissent. She has
held grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society, and is listed
in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.
Oreskes is the author of The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and
Method in American Earth Science (Oxford University Press, 1999), “Verification,
validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the earth sciences”
(Science 263: 641-646, 1994), and “Objectivity or Heroism: On the
Invisibility of Women in Science” (Osiris 11: 87-133, 1996), and
editor of Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory
of the Earth (with Homer Le Grand, Westview Press, 2001), which was cited
by Library Journal as one of the best science and technology books of
2002, and by Choice as an outstanding academic title of 2003. She is currently
completing “Science on a Mission: American Oceanography in the Cold
War and Beyond,” to be published by the University of Chicago Press
in 2007.
Oreskes’s most recent work deals with the science of climate change.
Her 2004 essay “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”
(Science 306: 1686), led to Op-Ed pieces in the Washington Post, the San
Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times, and has been widely cited
in the mass media, including National Public Radio (Fresh Air), The New
Yorker, USA Today, Parade, as well as in the Royal Society’s publication,
“A guide to facts and fictions about climate change,” and,
most recently, in Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Department of History,
0104
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093-0104
Phone: (858) 534-4695
FAX: (858) 534-7283
email: noreskes@ucsd.edu
Education
B.Sc., First Class Honours: Mining Geology, The Royal School
of Mines, Imperial College, University of London, England. 1981
Ph.D. Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science,
Stanford University, 1990
Academic
Employment
2003- 2006 Director, Science Studies Program, University of California,
San Diego.
2005- Professor, Department of History & Program in Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
Autumn, 2001 Visiting Associate Professor, Department of History of Science,
Harvard University
1998-2005 Associate
Professor, History Dept. and Program in Science Studies, University of
California, San Diego
1996-98 Associate Professor, History and Philosophy of Science, Gallatin
School of Individualized Study, New York University
1991-96 Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences and Adjunct Asst. Professor
of History, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
1990-91 Visiting Asst. Professor of Earth Sciences and Visiting Asst.
Professor of History, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
1984-89 Research Assistant, Geology Department, and Teaching Assistant,
Depts. of Geology, Philosophy, and Applied Earth Sciences Stanford University
Awards, Honors, Fellowships and Professional Activities (selected)
- George Sarton Award Lecture, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004
- American Philosophical Society Sabbatical Fellowship, 2001-2002.
- National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, 1994-1999.
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 1993-94.
- Society of Economic Geologists Lindgren Prize for outstanding work by a young scientist, 1993.
- Ritter Memorial Fellowship in History of Marine Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1994.
- Listed, Who’s Who in American Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in the West.
- Consultant U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Workshop , “Principles and Operational Strategies for Repository Staging Systems,” September 2001.
- Consultant U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, September 1999.
- Consultant U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Model Validation Project, 1996-1997.
