Myles Jackson

Who is Myles Jackson?

Myles W. Jackson is Professor of the History of Science at the Gallatin School of New York University, Professor of History of the Faculty of Arts and Science of New York University, and Director of Science and Society of the College of Arts and Science at NYU. He was the inugural Dibner Family Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Polytechnic Institute of New York University from 2007 to 2012. The chair is named after Bern Dibner, an electrical engineer, industrialist, historian of science and technology and alumnus of Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

He received his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University with Simon Schaffer in 1991. He has been a Senior Fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT and the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.

He is the author of numerous articles on the history, philosophy, and sociology of science and technology, with a particular emphasis on the cultural history of nineteenth-century German physics. He has also authored two books, Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany and Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics, which won the Paul Bunge Prize of the German Chemical Society for the best work on the history of scientific instruments in 2005 and the Hans Sauer Prize for the best work on the history of inventors and inventions in 2007. Spectrum of Belief has been translated into German, Fraunhofers Spektren: Die Präzisionsoptik als Handwerkskunst.