Vivien Hamilton

Vivien Hamilton.

Professor of the History of Science

PhD, University of Toronto

As a historian of science, technology and medicine, I ask questions about the creation of scientific knowledge as well as the production of ignorance. In my classes, I encourage students to ask why some claims about nature and the body are privileged over others, what happens when experts disagree, and what is lost when we discount or exclude certain kinds of knowledge. I find medical technologies to be particularly fascinating focal points for these questions, and many of my projects examine instruments used in medicine, including electrotherapy devices, x-ray machines, and infant incubators.

In addition to being Chair of the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts at Harvey Mudd, I am a member of the intercollegiate program in Science, Technology and Society at the Claremont Colleges.

Selected Publications

“Cultures of Measurement: Physics, Medicine and Quantification in Early X-ray Therapy,” Isis 116, no. 4 (2025), 671-693.

“Mothering Machines: The Promise of Infant Incubators in the early 20th century” Canadian Journal of Health History 42, no. 2 (2025).

“Dental X-Rays and the Imagined Patient,” in Technology, health and the patient consumer in the 20th century, Rachel Elder and Thomas Schlich, editors. (Manchester University Press, 2025).

Vivien Hamilton and Daniel M. Stoebel, “History in the Education of Scientists: Encouraging Judgement and Social Action,” Isis 11, no.3 (2020), 623- 630.

“X-Ray Protection in American Hospitals,” in Inevitably Toxic: Historical Perspectives on Contamination, Exposure and Expertise. 23-49. Edited by Brinda Sarathy, Vivien Hamilton and Janet Farrell Brodie, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).

“Medical Machines as Symbols of Science?: Promoting Electrotherapy in Victorian Canada,” Technology and Culture 58, no.4 (2017): 1017 – 1045.

Courses Taught

(Please refer to HSA Departmental Courses for this semester’s courses.)

  • CORE 99 HM STEM and Social Impact: Climate Change
  • HIST 081 HM Science and Technology in the Early Modern World
  • HIST 082 HM Science and Technology in the Modern World
  • HIST 150 HM Technology and Medicine
  • HIST 151 HM Science in Fiction
  • HIST 152 HM A History of Modern Physics
  • HIST 179J HM Genetics and Race / Special Topics in History
  • STS 115 HM Communicating Science