Gregory Good is the new director of the AIP History Center

The AIP Center for History of Physics announces that the center’s director, Spencer Weart, will retire in January 2009, and will be replaced by Gregory Good.

Gregory Good received a B.S. in physics from St. Vincent College (Latrobe, PA) in 1974, and a Ph.D in history of science from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1982. He is currently associate professor, director of graduate studies, and chair of the history department at West Virginia University. His historical interests include the history of physics and of the earth sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries, in particular questions of disciplinary identities, shifting research programs, and diverse commitments (social, institutional, and political). Among his published works is “The Earth, the Heavens and the Carnegie Institution of Washington” (1994). He has served as editor of the two-volume “Sciences of the Earth” encyclopedia.

“There are a lot of disciplinary history centers, and I plan to work with all the ones I can, and even to work with ones that may seem counterintuitive,” said Good. “One thing I hope to do is to have the history center function as a physical meeting place.” He also hopes to reach out to D.C. area universities to coordinate programs and projects with historians of science at those universities, and also throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

Spencer Weart received a B.A. in physics from Cornell in 1963 and a Ph.D. in physics & astrophysics from the University of Colorado in 1968.

After postdoctoral terms at Caltech (solar physics) and the University of California, Berkeley (history of science) he became the director of the center for history of physics in 1974. He has published a variety of works including “Nuclear Fear: A History of Images” (1988) and “The Discovery of Global Warming” (2003, revised edition in press). In his retirement he plans to continue to write historical works and to assist in the growth of the history center’s website.

In honor of Weart’s 35 years of contributions to the history of science, the Avenir Foundation made a gift of three million dollars to endow the Spencer R. Weart Directorship of the Center for History of Physics. This is the largest gift ever given to AIP and establishes the first endowed position at the Institute. “With support like this from our friends,” Weart says, “the new director will be taking the history center in exciting new directions.”

About the Center

AIP’s Center for History of Physics and Niels Bohr Library & Archives worktogether with partners around the world for a better understanding of the human side of physics and allied sciences such as astronomy and geophysics. Established in 1965, the Center helps to preserve the history of physics and allied fields and to make that history better known. Through documentation programs, archival collections and educational initiatives, they help ensure that the heritage of modern physics is safeguarded and its story accurately told. See http://www.aip.org/history/