Sandra Herbert née Swanson (born April 10, 1942 in Chicago)[1] is an American historian of science with an international reputation as an expert on Charles Darwin.[2] The Geological Society of London awarded her the 2020 Sue Tyler Friedman Medal.[3]

Biography

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Sandra Lynn Swanson's father was an accountant[1] and both her grandfathers worked at Chicago steel mills.[4] She graduated in 1963 with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studied from Wittenberg University. At Brandeis University, she graduated in the History of Ideas with an M.A. in 1965 and a Ph.D. in 1968.[5] Her Ph.D. thesis is entitled The Logic of Darwin's Discovery.[6] In 1966 she married James Charles Herbert (born 1941), who received his Ph.D. in 1970 from Brandeis University and became an education executive. Sandra and James Herbert have two daughters.[1] She became a professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and retired in 2009 as professor emerita.[7]

Sandra Herbert was from 2007 to 2008 a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Christ's College, Cambridge.[8] From February 2012 to February 2013 she was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.[9]

Her 2005 book Charles Darwin, Geologist has become the basic reference for Darwin's research on geology.[10] In 2006 the book won the Geological Society of America's Mary C. Rabbitt History of Geology Award,[5] the History of Science Society's Suzanne J. Levinson Prize, the American Historical Association's George L. Mosse Prize, and the Albion Book Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies.[11]

In 2007 Sandra Herbert organized and led an expedition to the Galápagos Islands.[12] There she and her colleagues in July 2007 on Isla Santiago located igneous rocks similar to the samples collected by Darwin. Thereby they gained a better understanding of how Darwin's field observations in geology are related to his research published in Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands (1844).[13]

She was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1982–1983.[14] In 2006 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[15] She is also a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.[16]

Selected publications

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Articles

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  • Herbert, Sandra (1971). "Darwin, Malthus, and Selection". Journal of the History of Biology. 4 (1): 209–217. doi:10.1007/BF00356983. JSTOR 4330556. PMID 11609436. S2CID 38075809.
  • —— (1974). "The place of man in the development of Darwin's theory of transmutation". Journal of the History of Biology. 7 (2): 217–258. doi:10.1007/BF00351204. PMID 11609300. S2CID 27605743.
  • —— (1977). "The place of man in the development of Darwin's theory of transmutation. Part II". Journal of the History of Biology. 10 (2): 155–227. doi:10.1007/BF00572643. PMID 11615664. S2CID 45493836.
  • —— (1986). "Darwin as a Geologist". Scientific American. 254 (5): 116–123. Bibcode:1986SciAm.254e.116H. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0586-116. JSTOR 24975958.
  • —— (1991). "Charles Darwin as a prospective geological author". The British Journal for the History of Science. 24 (2): 159–192. doi:10.1017/S0007087400027060. S2CID 143748414.
  • —— (1995). "From Charles Darwin's Portfolio: An Early Essay on South American Geology and Species". Earth Sciences History. 14 (1): 23–36. Bibcode:1995ESHis..14...23H. doi:10.17704/eshi.14.1.76570264u727jh36. JSTOR 24137195.
  • —— (2005). "The Darwinian Revolution Revisited". Journal of the History of Biology. 38 (1): 51–66. doi:10.1007/s10739-004-6509-y. PMID 25214416. S2CID 43064176.
  • —— (2007). "Doing and knowing: Charles Darwin and other travellers". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 287 (1): 311–323. Bibcode:2007GSLSP.287..311H. doi:10.1144/SP287.24. S2CID 146521336.
  • —— (2015). "Creation and extinction: The geological background to the initial American reception of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species". Earth Sciences History. 34 (2): 243–262. Bibcode:2015ESHis..34..243H. doi:10.17704/1944-6178-34-2-243.

Books

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Herbert, Sandra 1942- (Sandra Lynn Swanson Herbert)". encyclopedia.com.
  2. ^ "Sandra Herbert papers". Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
  3. ^ "The Geological Society of London - Sue Tyler Friedman Medal".
  4. ^ Herbert, Sandra (2005). "Preface". Charles Darwin, Geologist. Cornell University Press. p. xx. ISBN 9780801443480.
  5. ^ a b "2006 Mary C. Rabbitt History of Geology Award, Presented to Sandra Herbert". GSA Medals & Awards, The Geological Society of America.
  6. ^ Herbert, Sandra Swanson (1968). The logic of Darwin's discovery. Brandeis University. OL 19229559M – via openlibrary.org; brief book details of Ph.D. thesis, Brandeis University{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  7. ^ Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society. The Society. 2009. p. 152.
  8. ^ Ruse, Michael; Richards, Robert J., eds. (2009). The Cambridge Companion to the 'Origin of Species'. Cambridge University Press. p. viii. ISBN 9780521870795.
  9. ^ "Sandra Herbert, Visiting Scholar". Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society, University of California, Berkeley. 27 August 2012.
  10. ^ Wesson, Rob (11 April 2017). Darwin's First Theory. Simon and Schuster. p. 64. ISBN 9781681773773.
  11. ^ "Sandra Herbert". History Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
  12. ^ "Sandra Herbert, University of Maryland, Baltimore County" (PDF). The Geological Society.
  13. ^ Miles, Andrew; Grant, Thalia; Estes, Greg; Geist, Dennis; Norman, David; Gibson, Sally; Herbert, Sandra (2009). "Into the Field Again: Re-Examining Charles Darwin's 1835 Geological Work on Isla Santiago (James Island) in the Galápagos Archipelago". Earth Sciences History. 28 (1): 1–31. Bibcode:2009ESHis..28....1H. doi:10.17704/eshi.28.1.mjt982717p162323.
  14. ^ "Sandra Herbert". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
  15. ^ "Elected Fellows — Listing of Fellows who are current members". American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
  16. ^ "All Active and Current GSA Fellows". The Geological Society of America (GSA).
  17. ^ Montgomery, William (1988). "Darwin's Early Thoughts: Charles Darwin's Notebooks, 1836-1844. Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Inquiries Paul H. Barrett, Peter J. Gautrey, Sandra Herbert, David Kohn, and Sydney Smith, eds". Science. 241 (4863): 363–365. doi:10.1126/science.241.4863.363.b. p.365
  18. ^ Miller, David Philip (2007). "Review of Charles Darwin, Geologist by Sandra Herbert". The American Historical Review. 112: 272. doi:10.1086/ahr.112.1.272.
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