David Friedman is Professor in the History, Theory and Criticism Section, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author, with Hilary Ballon, of the forthcoming chapter on city views, for Volume 3 of the History of Cartography, ed. David Woodward and, with Antonella Astorri, "The Mercanzia of Florence," I Tatti Studies. At the Dibner Institute he plans to develop a book on the early methods of geometric survey, the development of maps of urban design, and the accuracy of the instruments used.

Ben Marsden, Lecturer in Cultural History, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, is the author, with Crosbie Smith, of Engineering Empires: A Cultural History of Technology in Nineteenth Century Britain, 2005. At the Dibner Institute he plans to continue working on his book project, "W.J. Macquorn Rankine and the Making of Engineering Science."

Giovanni Paoloni, Professor of Archival Theory and History of Archives in the Faculty of Studies on Cultural Heritage at University "La Tuscia," Viterbo, Italy, is the editor of Vito Volterra e il suo tempo (1860-1940), Roma 1990, and, with Raffaella Simili, of the two-volume history, Per una storia del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Roma-Bari 2001. His project while at the Dibner Institute is titled "Vito Volterra and his American Correspondents."

Carl Posy, Professor of Philosophy at Hebrew University, is the author of "Epistemology, Ontology and the Continuum," in Mathematics and the Growth of Knowledge, 2001. The title of the project on which he will be working at the Dibner Institute is "Kantian Mathematical Themes: A Pair of Chapters in 18th and 19th Century Mathematics."

Glen Van Brummelen, Professor of Mathematics, Bennington College, is the Editor, with Michael Kinyon, of the forthcoming volume, "Mathematics, Content and Context: The Kenneth O. May Lectures in History of Mathematics."  His research project while at the Dibner Institute is a scientific history of trigonometry from Hipparchus to Fourier.

David Wilson, Professor in the Department of History, Iowa State University, is the Co-editor, with Johanna Geyer-Kordesch, of Physics and Physic: Essays in Memory of John M.A. Lenihan, 2001 and of a manuscript being submitted this spring, "Seeking Nature's Logic: Natural Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment." At the Dibner Institute he will begin research for a biography of William Whewell, emphasizing Whewell's transition from studies in natural philosophy to modern 'science.'

Deborah Cramer wrote Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage , 2001, which explores the myriad ways in which the sea is a wellspring of life, and how humans are altering its finely-tuned balances. In her next book, "Cholera: The New Face of an Old Disease," she will examine how the complex interplay among a wide array of scientific disciplines - climatology, limnology, epidemiology, ecology, engineering, genetics, and microbiology - has framed, and reframed, our understanding of an ancient and reemerging scourge.

Claire Calcagno received her Ph.D. in Archaeology from Oxford University, and was recently a Visiting Scholar in MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society, working with the Deep-Water Archaeology Research Group.  Her research at the Dibner Institute focuses on Harold Edgerton's innovative engineering contributions to maritime archaeology, including sonar instruments he developed that transformed underwater survey methods.

Takashi Nishiyama received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2004. He has been working on a book-length manuscript, which expands his dissertation, “Swords into Plowshares: Civilian Application of Wartime Military Technology in Modern Japan, 1945-1964.” As a researcher at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, he carried out extensive archival work on the technology transfer from aeronautics to the high-speed bullet train in post-World War II Japan.

Sandro Caparrini is a member of the research group for the history of mathematics at the University of Turin, where he received his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2004. He is the author of I manoscritti di Giovanni Plana dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Catalogazione e Note Storiche, 2000. At the Dibner Institute he plans to work on illustrating the direct influence of mechanics and geometry on the development of vector calculus.

Matthew Harpster, enrolled in the Department of Anthropology, Texas A& M University, will receive his Ph.D. this summer.   His dissertation is titled "A Reconstruction of the 9th Century A.D. ships from Bozburun, Turkey."   While at the Dibner Institute he will examine the hull remains from five shipwrecks spanning the first to the eleventh century A.D. in an attempt to trace the development of design methods recorded in two 15th century Italian treatises.

Jeremiah James will receive his Ph.D. June 2005 from the History of Science Department, Harvard University. The title of his dissertation is "Naturalizing the Chemical Bond: Program and Discipline in the Pauling group, 1927-1942." At the Dibner Institute, he will work on two projects: the first, to prepare two chapters of his dissertation on Linus Pauling for publication; and the second will be a history of the early years of x-ray crystallography and its progress to routine laboratory technology.

Martin Niss will receive his Ph.D. this spring in the history of physics from the University of Roskilde, Denmark.   The working title of his dissertation is "Phenomena, Models, and Understanding: The Use of Models in Critical Phenomena, 1944-1971." The title of his proposed project while at the Dibner Institute is "Mathematics as a Constraint and the Impact of New Techniques on Modeling Practices in Solid State Physics."

Alexander Brown, a student in MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society,   received the B.A. in History in 1998 and the B.Sc. in Computer Science in 1997 from the   University of Otago, New Zealand. The title of his thesis is "From Apollo I to Columbia: Accidents, Politics and Engineering Cultures at NASA, 1967-2003."

Dimitri Constant has a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in religion (both from Yale University). He is currently working on his Ph.D. in philosophy at Boston University with a focus on logic and philosophy of mathematics. His dissertation is titled "The Standard Interpretation of Higher-Order Variables in Modern Logic and the Concept of Arbitrary Function in Mathematics."

Jean François Gauvin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University.   At the University of Montreal he received the B.Sc. in Mathematical Physics and an M.A. in the History of Science. The title of his thesis is "Epistemic Organon: Artisans, Savants, and the Material Culture of Natural Philosophy in 17th Century France."

Peter Shulman, a student in MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society, received his B.S. in Mathematics from MIT.   He is the author of "Science Can Never Demobilize: The United States Navy and Petroleum Geology, 1898-1924," History and Technology, 2003. His dissertation, "Empire of Energy: Coal, Power, and the Environment of American Expansion, 1880-1930," explores the impact of coal and steam power on the American empire in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Jenny Leigh Smith, a student in MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society, received the B.A. from Macalester College. Her dissertation examines the history of agriculture, food and the environment in the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1965.

Elly Truitt, a doctoral candidate in the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, received her B.A. at Wellesley College and an A.M. at Harvard. Her dissertation is a cultural and intellectual study of medieval automata in Western Europe, 1100-1550.

Anya Zilberstein is a student in MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She is working on her dissertation entitled "Planting Improvement: Small Farms and Scientific Agriculture in the British North Atlantic, 1763-1815," which examines the relationship between farmers and agricultural modernizers at two sites: the hinterlands of Boston, Massachusetts and Halifax, Nova Scotia.