Focus of Research: History of Science; Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics.
I investigate the development of border problems at the multiple intersections of physics and chemistry that came to define the overlapping fields of chemical physics, quantum chemistry, molecular physics, and diffraction research (X-ray and electron) in the interwar and immediate post-WW II periods. My research topics have included the early research career and strategies of Linus Pauling; the history of the Fritz Haber Institute, with special attention to the organizational strategies and research interests of its eponymous founding director; and the evolution of “trial and error” methods in pre-WW II X-ray crystallography. My most recent research looks at the encounters between X-ray crystallography and stereochemistry that led to the introduction into chemistry of scale modeling techniques and the new parameters that made them possible.