Jed Buchwald received the Koyré medal for career achievement in the history of science on March 18, 2024.
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Meet the Humanities Faculty
Eli and Edythe Broad Professor of English
Cindy Weinstein
Caltech is a wonderful place to pursue original research; it lets your interests determine the work you do. There is both a tremendous amount of freedom and an extremely high level of expectation, and these two combine to create a terrific intellectual environment that helps scholars generate their best work."
Robert M. Abbey Professor of History; Director and General Editor, The Einstein Papers Project
Diana Kormos Buchwald
We are always asked, 'Is there anything we don't know about Einstein?' And as editors of the Einstein Papers Project, we always reply, 'Yes, there is a lot that we are learning and discovering, about his work, and that of many others, about Einstein not being just the icon with funny hair but a professional, hard-working scientist with deep preoccupations.'"
The humanities have the practical function of giving students something they wouldn't otherwise have. The humanities classroom is a space where they can take a step back from their scientific work and learn to think about the world in a different way."
I bring to the classroom complex questions concerning inequality and justice that I've often yet to figure out myself. I invite students to think along with me and, through this collaboration, I equip them with tools to confront the most pressing concerns of our time."
My commitment to creative works which emphasize care within critical and liberative contexts has only deepened during my time at Caltech. I hope my research and my courses help students navigate an increasingly uncertain world."
In my classes, students learn the craft of the medieval historian: to read closely the often difficult primary sources from medieval Europe; push past but also take into account their perspectives, assumptions, and biases, as much as possible; and to assemble what they have learned into persuasive written arguments."
I ask my students to listen to their own assumptions about themselves and the world as they study a broad range of materials that may seem temporally or culturally remote from us."
Edie and Lew Wasserman Professor of Social Science History; Ronald and Maxine Linde Leadership Chair, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Caltech
Tracy Dennison
Our memories for epidemics are very short. We keep hearing that things will never be the same again, but that's not what the history tells us. Some things may change, but the kind of profound social reorganization one might expect is unlikely."