Capstone Projects

The fall 2015 HSCI Capstone was designed to introduce students to a range of documents and scholarship relating to just some of the many narratives of human evolution.  The idea of humanity’s evolutionary progress (or degeneration) has shaped our culture, our science, and our politics; ultimately, it has profoundly colored and sexed our sense of what it means to be human.  Students used historical tools of analysis to excavate aspects of the evolutionary stories that have shaped our lives.  Plays, poetry, and painting, as well as the politics of social-Darwinism and eugenics, were all fair game as students looked at the development of evolutionary biology as a contribution to sociology, anthropology, primatology and at the development, and critique, of the “selfish gene”.

William R. Burnett
Senior, Class of Fall 2015
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Capstone Project:  "Intellectualism, Evolution, and the Science of Education in Victorian England" (pdf)

Micah D. Guthrie
Senior, Class of Fall 2015
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Capstone Project:  "Diaries of Different Years: Translating Peter Kropotkin’s Correspondence from his Siberian Expedition" (pdf)

Brenna K. McCullough
Senior, Class of Spring 2016
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Capstone Project:  "Exploring Female’s Role in Evolution" (pdf)

Jonathon R. Self
Senior, Class of Spring 2016
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Capstone Project:  "A Bibliographic Study of Charles Darwin’s Biographies" (pdf)

Students in the fall 2014 Capstone were asked to apply their research and writing skills and their knowledge of the history of science to select a project centered around a question of current interest in politics and public policy. Both students chose to explore a topic related to the human genome project.

Victoria A. Shell
 Senior, Class of Spring 2015
 BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
 Capstone Project:  "Race, Genomics, and Medicine" (pdf)

Robert J. Rainone
 Senior, Class of Fall 2015
 BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine
 Capstone Project:  "Genomics and Privacy in the Age of Information: The Intersection of Public and Private Information in Genomics Research" (pdf)

In 2014-2015, the University Libraries will mount a major exhibition focused on Galileo’s World. In anticipation of this event, the fall 2013 Capstone focus was the preparation of materials for the Libraries’ exhibition. The five students enrolled in the Capstone had the unique opportunity of participating in the preparation of materials for the exhibition as they examined several of the works of Galileo in their historical context as well as modern interpretations and uses of the Galileo Affair. Their completed projects are fine examples of the creativity of our majors and the historical research and analysis skills acquired by those at the senior level of the major program. 

Mary “Katie” Allison
Senior, Class of Spring 2014
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Minor, Chemistry; Pre-Med Program
Capstone Project: “Galileo Galilei & the Plague" (pdf)

Brianna G. Hair
Senior, Class of Spring 2014
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Minor, Chinese 
Capstone Project: “Galileo in China: 16th- and 17th-Century Jesuit Astronomy" (pdf)

Adrian B. Lucy
Senior, Class of Spring 2014
Dual Degree: BS, Astrophysics; BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Minor, Mathematics
Capstone Project: “Music in Galileo’s Life/Work” (pdf)

Sana Masood
Senior, Class of Fall 2013
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Minor, History; Minor History
Capstone Project: “Tusi’s Couple, Copernicus, and Galileo” (pdf)

Elizabeth K. Wilcox
Senior, Class of Fall 2013
BA, History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Minor, Anthropology
Capstone Project: “Islam, Judaism, Protestant Christianity and Heliocentrism” (pdf)