Faculty & Staff

Michael A. Osborne

Ph.D. University of Wisconsin 1987
History of the Life Sciences and Medicine
Environmental History and Bioethics

302D Milam
Mike.Osborne@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737-0776

Michael A. Osborne specializes in the history of modern biology, medicine, and environmental issues. He is especially interested in evolution, public health, regenerative medicine, and alpine environments.

Background

Osborne discovered the history of science as an undergraduate at Oregon State University, where he benefited from charismatic and intellectually demanding professors. Before becoming a professor he worked for a number of government and private agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fellowships or grants from the National Science Foundation, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Camargo Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and other agencies have supported his research and that of his graduate students. Before returning to OSU he was professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he continues as Research Professor of Environmental Studies and History and bioethics leader for human embryonic stem cell research. He is currently completing a book under contract with the University of Chicago Press titled The Emergence of Tropical Medicine in France.

Books, Edited Volumes

• Nature, the Exotic, and the  Science of French Colonialism (1994).
• Special issue on "Science, technoscience, and imperialism,” Science, Technology, and Society 4, no. 2, (1999) [Co-editor with D. Kumar].

Representative Articles

• "Eugenics in France and the French Empire,” in A. Bashford, P. Levine, eds., Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (Oxford University Press, 2010) [Co-author, R. Fogarty].
• Nature, technology, and the human condition,” in M. Drenthen, et. al., eds. New Visions of Nature: Complexity and Authenticity  (Springer, 2009), pp. 267-278 [Co-author, C.  Newell].
• “Raphaël Blanchard, Parasitology, and the positioning of Medical Entomology in Paris,” Parassitologia 50 (2008) [pub.2009]: 213-220.
• "Science in the French Empire," Isis 96 (2005): 80-87.
• "Views from the periphery: Discourses of Race and Place in French Military   Medicine,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 25 (2003):  363-389 [Co-author, R. Fogarty].
• "Acclimatising the world: A history of the paradigmatic colonial science, " Osiris15 (2001): 135-151.
  

Recent Professional and Editorial Activities

• President, Commission pour Sciences et Empires, Division of History of Science and Technology (2005-2009).
• Second Vice-President, Division of History of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (UNESCO) (2009-2013).
• Associate Editor, Journal for the History of Biology (2009- ).
• Editorial Board,  Pickering and Chatto Publishers (UK), monograph series “Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century.”