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| Photo by Brianna Rego |
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My research in the history of science focuses on late-twentieth century and contemporary history of science and science policy, especially as it relates to tobacco control. My dissertation is a history tobacco in which I examine the internal scientific research labs the tobacco industry built in the late 1950s and early 1960s in response to mounting concerns about the health effects of smoking. These labs were shut down in the 1980s amid concerns over litigation. I am researching the tobacco industry's research and responses to three specific constituents of tobacco: radioactive polonium-210, nitrosamines, and cadmium. I hope to use my historical understanding of the tobacco industry to inform current and future tobacco control and policy efforts by anticipating future industry behavior in response to new policy initiatives and advances in the medical and public health fields.
My work on polonium-210 in tobacco was published in 2009 in Isis and in 2011 in Scientific American:
The Polonium Brief: A Hidden History of Cancer, Radiation, and the Tobacco Industry (Isis, 2009 100:453-484 PDF)
Radioactive Smoke: A Dangerous Isotope Lurks in Cigarettes (Scientific American, 2011)
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Stanford
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