Student Summer Internships at the Yale Peabody Museum

Research Project: Historical Scientific Instruments

Mentor: Shae Trewin
Collections Manager, Division of Historical Scientific Instruments, Yale Peabody Museum
shae.trewin@yale.edu
Division of Historical Scientific Instruments Website

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The Division of Historical Scientific Instruments was established in 1960 by the well-known historian of science Derek de Solla Price. Now totaling over 3,000 objects dating from 1545 to 1970, the Division covers all areas of science, particularly those established by the Sheffield Scientific School and Yale College in the middle 19th century. Though more heavily represented by physics and natural philosophy, the collection also has a significant number of objects from chemistry, biology, engineering, astronomy and geology. Apart from astronomy and physics, instruments from the other sciences require more study and provenance. The collection also boasts several objects used or even made by famous scientists, including Ivan Pavlov, Robert Yerkes, Benjamin Silliman, Joseph Henry, Ernest Rutherford, Henry Rowland, Lord Rayleigh, Josiah Willard Gibbs and Ernest Lawrence.

My main research interest is to improve the provenance of the collection by studying Yale scientists and the scientific instruments they used or developed. The aim of this research is to reduce the knowledge gap about the history of science at Yale and to contribute to the growing literature about instruments used in American science.

Top right: Cuff style microscope, made by A. Neddermann in Hannover, Germany, about 1760. Presented to Yale College by Adolphus H. Lane of New Haven, January 1862 (YPM catalog no. 1.58).
Bottom right: Chemical specimens belonging to Benjamin Silliman, Sr., dated to about early to middlle 19th century (YPM catalog no. 29.3).

To Apply

Interested? Send a one- to two-page project description, along with a letter of support from the mentor of this research project, to the internship program coordinator:

Eric Lazo-Wasem
Senior Collections Manager
Division of Invertebrate Zoology
Peabody Museum of Natural History
Yale University
P.O. Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA

203.432.3784
Fax 203.432.9816
eric.lazo-wasem@yale.edu


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