Roy MacLeod

Roy MacLeod studied history and biochemistry at Harvard University and was awarded the AB degree summa cum laude.[1]

From 1963 to 1966 he studied the history of science at Cambridge University as a Fulbright Fellow, and was awarded the PhD in history in 1967.[2]

MacLeod was appointed to the first junior research fellowship in History at Churchill College, Cambridge in 1966, a position he held until 1970. In 1966, following an earlier visit to University of Sussex at the invitation of Asa Briggs, he was appointed a founding Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU).[1]

Four years later, in 1970, while remaining a Research Fellow at SPRU, he was further appointed as foundation Reader in the History and Philosophy of Science at Sussex, where he set up a new subject group called the History and Social Studies of Science.[3]

In 1971 MacLeod co-founded the academic journal Social Studies of Science, focused on the history, politics and sociology of science and technology.[1] Today among the most cited journals in the field, MacLeod served as co-editor for the next 21 years, standing down in 1992.[4]

Also in 1971, with Gerard Lemaine, Clemens Heller, and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris, he founded Project PAREX (Paris-Sussex) for the collaborative study of the history of science in Europe.[5] Ten years later, Project PAREX would become the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology.[6]

In 1978 MacLeod moved from the University of Sussex to the foundation chair of Science Education at the Institute of Education in the University of London.

In 1982 moved to Australia as Professor of History at the University of Sydney,[1][2] where he remained for the next 21 years.

While at Sydney, he taught social, economic, and cultural history; Australian and Commonwealth history; medical history; military history; nuclear history; museum studies; the history of higher education; and the history of science and technology in Europe, India, Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific.[2]

In 1985, with Philip Rehbock, he co-founded the Pacific Circle and the Pacific Circle Bulletin, based in Honolulu, to survey research in the history of the natural sciences in the Pacific.[7][8]

In 2000 MacLeod was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy, remaining in the position until 2008.[9]

In 2003, he became an Emeritus Professor of History,[10] where he has remained in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI). He is also an Honorary Professor at the University's Centre for International Security Studies, an Honorary Associate in the School of History and Philosophy of Science, and an Honorary Member of the Sydney Nano Institute.[1][2]

He has also held a number of visiting and honorary positions, including the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. (part of the Smithsonian Institution) in 2010,[2] the Keeley Visiting Fellowship at Wadham College, Oxford in 2013,[11] and a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2017.[2] He has also been a Visiting Senior Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and St John's College, Oxford, and a Fowler Hamilton Fellow, Christchurch College, Oxford. In 2001, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize [1] by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which took him to the University of Heidelberg, and in 2017 was a Humboldt Alumni Fellow at the University of Hamberg and the University of Karlsruhe

Roy MacLeod is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London,[12] the Royal Historical Society,[13] the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia,[14] the Australian Academy of the Humanities,[2][15] and of the Royal Society of New South Wales.[16] He has twice been a Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in the United States (now the Science History Institute).[17]

In 2001 he was awarded the Doctor of Letters degree by Cambridge University.[2] In the same year he was awarded a Centenary Medal for services to History by the Australian government.[18]

In 2005, he received a doctorate of letters, honoris causa from the University of Bologna.[19]

MacLeod received the Sarton Medal as Sarton Chair of History of Science, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium between 2014 and 2015 [20] In 2017, he received the History of Philosophy and Science Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales.[16]

In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to education, particularly to history.[21]

Some of his works include:[22][23]

• Official website