Research

Research Priorities: Molecular biology and intellectual property in Europe and the US, music, science and technology in the 18th, 19th and 20th century, bioethics, genetic patents, the impact of intellectual property law on research in the areas of molecular genetics, race and genomics.

Myles W. Jackson is an American science historian. His work centres around the historical, philosophical and sociological aspects of science and technology. One his key areas of interest is the cultural history of British and German physics in the 19th century. As part of interdisciplinary investigations, he regularly looks into the aesthetic relationship between music and physics.

His research into the investigator and explorer Joseph Fraunhofer has been endowed with several awards. In this research, Jackson concentrated on the cultural and material environment of the German researcher and inventor. He also retraced how Joseph Fraunhofer became a figurehead for the connection between science and industry during the 19th century.

Another of Jackson’s fields of interest is the contemporary history of biotechnology, in particular the impact which intellectual property rights and the patenting of human genes have on research into molecular biology. This is exemplified in a project looking at the patenting of gene CCR5, and the resulting impact on research into AIDS. Jackson uses the history of this particular gene to describe important aspects and effects on biotechnology, linking aspects of molecular biology with the history of natural science and jurisprudence on the one hand, and sociological and anthropological issues on the other. He is a renowned consultant to American institutions on this issue, for instance by advising the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in connection with their legal case against the gene patents held by Myriad Genetics, an American molecular diagnostics company.

Career

• since 2018 Albers‐Schönberg Professor, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA
• 2015 Fellow, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM), Kaiserlautern, and University of Stuttgart, Germany
• since 2014 Albert Gallatin Research Excellence Professor of the History of Science, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University (NYU), New York City, USA
• 2014 Fellow, American Academy, Berlin, Germany
• since 2013 Professor of History, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Science, NYU, New York City, USA
• 2012 Francis Bacon Visiting Professor of the History of Science & Technology, Caltech – California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA
• since 2012 Director of Science and Society, College of Arts and Science, NYU, New York City, USA
• since 2008 Professor of the History of Science, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, NYU, New York City, USA
• 2007 Professor of the History of Science, Willamette University, Salem, USA
• 2002‐2007 Associate Professor of the History of Science, Willamette University, Salem, USA
• 1998‐2002 Assistant Professor of the History of Science, Willamette University, Salem, USA
• 1995‐1998 Visiting Assistant Professor of History, History of Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
• 1994‐1995 Lecturer, Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 1992‐1994 Lecturer and Mellon Fellow, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
• 1991‐1992 Walter Rathenau Fellow, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• 1991 Ph.D. in the History of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
• 1988 M. Phil. in the History of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
• 1986 Bachelor of Arts in German Literature and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

Projects

• 2016 Project “German Radio and the Development of Electric Music in the 1920s and 1930s”, Berlin, Germany
• 2009‐2010 Project “Science at the Boundaries”, NYU Seed Grant, NYU, New York City, USA

Honours and Memberships

• 2016 ‐ 2017 Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin – Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin, Germany
• 2014 Robert Bosch Fellow, American Academy, Berlin, Germany
• 2014 Reimar Lüst Prize, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Germany
• 2012 Corresponding Member, Académie Internationale d’ Historie des Sciences, Belgium
• 2011 Guest Researcher and Scholarship, ITWM, Kaiserslautern, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Germany
• since 2011 Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Germany
• 2010 Francis Bacon Award in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Caltech, Pasadena, USA
• since 2009 Member, Academy of the Sciences for the Common Good, Erfurt, Germany
• 2006 Hans Sauer Prize, Hans Sauer Foundation, Munich, Germany
• 2005 Paul Bunge Prize, Germany Chemical Society (GDCh) and the Deutsche Bunsen‐Gesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie (DBG), Germany
• Derek Bok Teaching Award, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
• Teaching Award, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA