Evelynn M. Hammonds

Evelynn M. Hammonds

Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African American Studies
Chair of the Department of the History of Science
Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evelynn M. Hammonds

On leave Spring 2024

Professor Evelynn M. Hammonds is the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies.

Professor Hammonds joined the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2002 after teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology and Medicine. Her scholarly interests include the history of scientific, medical, and sociopolitical concepts of race, the history of disease and public health, gender in science and medicine, and African-American history. She is the author of “Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930” and many scholarly articles.

Professor Hammonds received her B.S. in physics from Spelman College. She earned a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in physics from MIT, and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard.  She was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. and also served as a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer from 2003 to 2005. Currently she is an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Professor Hammonds serves on a number of boards including the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.  She holds an honorary doctorate of humane letters from her alma mater, Spelman College where she also serves on the Board of Trustees.  In February 2008, she was named a fellow of the Association of Women in Science (AWIS). She serves on the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE), the congressionally mandated advising committee to the National Science Foundation.

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