Master of Arts in History of Science

The Department of the History of Science offers a comprehensive graduate program leading to the AM and PhD degrees. We are one of the world's leading institutions for producing the next generation of professional historians of science, training students to examine the development of science through a course of study that lays a broad foundation for teaching and research across the field. Our faculty and students employ historical, textual, ethnographic, and social scientific methods to explore the genesis and evolution of the sciences and to analyze the growth of science as part of the intellectual and social experience of humankind, as well as to ask larger questions about how the various sciences work in practice and the basis of their authority, how ethical and political decisions are made about their regulation and applications, how they relate to larger intellectual, cultural, social, and political trends and changes, and much more. Faculty and student interests span medieval to contemporary times, and engage the full range of sciences: physics, astronomy, molecular biology, evolutionary theory, technology, brain and behavioral science, the psychological sciences, medicine, and public health. Together we form a lively interdisciplinary community of scholars. The department offers admission to a very few select students seeking the free-standing AM degree. External applicants for the degree may be considered on a case-by-case basis, it is expected they will be in fulltime residence. Students who have been accepted to pursue an AM include those pursuing a PhD in another Harvard department, advanced degree candidates at foreign universities, and students with a PhD in another field, from Harvard or elsewhere.