Profile for Penelope Hardy

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Penelope Hardy
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Assistant Professor
History
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Specialty area(s)
History of science, technology, and medicine, especially technologies of ocean science.
Brief biography
Penelope K. Hardy is an historian of science, technology, and medicine, focusing on technologies of science, ocean sciences, and scientific exploration of the global ocean. Hardy’s research on ocean sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries focuses on the role of ocean-going research vessels in the development of modern scientific understanding of the oceans and the ocean-atmosphere system, and in the establishment of oceanography as a field. Her academic fields of interest include the relationship between science and the public, the role of technology in American society, the professionalization of science, and changes in popular understanding of the deep oceans. She has published on topics including military-scientific partnerships in the US and UK, meteorology in interwar Germany, and ocean mapping as both technical feat and imaginative exercise. A recipient of numerous research fellowships, including from the Smithsonian Institution, the American Meteorological Society, the Huntington Library, and the North American Society for Oceanic History, Hardy is also co-founder of an international working group examining the history of oceanic science, technology, and medicine.
Current courses at UWL
Spring 2023:
HIS 110 - Technology & Science in World History
HIS 490 - History Research Seminar
Fall 2023
HIS 110 - Technology & Science in World History
HIS 280 - Survey of the History of Modern Science
HIS 309 - History of US Science & Technology
Education
PhD in History of Science & Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
MA in History, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL
BS in Aerospace Engineering (Astronautics), US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
Career
Teaching history
Past courses include:
Survey of the History of Modern Science (HIS 280)
Knowing the Oceans: A History of Human Understanding of the Ocean Environment (HIS 300)
Epidemics in World History (HIS 300)
History of US Science & Technology (HIS 309)
Professional history
Before coming to UW-La Crosse in 2019, Dr. Hardy was a visiting assistant professor at Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Research and publishing
I will present a teaching exercise from my Knowing the Oceans course in a paper called “Grasping the Bottom of the Nineteenth-century Sea in a Twenty-first-century Classroom” at the 50th International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) Annual Conference in Tallinn/Tartu, Estonia, 14-18 August 2023.
I'll be presenting as part of a roundtable on “Careers in Maritime History and Archaeology: A Roundtable Discussion” at the North American Society for Oceanic History Annual Conference in San Diego, CA, on 18 May 2023.
I am editing a four-volume primary source collection on global oceanic history for the Routledge Historical Resources series, tentatively titled Knowing the Oceans, 1790-1914: A Global History in Primary Sources.
My book review of Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea by Samantha Muka appeared in the 23 December 2022 issue of the journal Science.
I chaired a panel on "Explorations, Expeditions, and Extractions" at the History of Science Society Annual Conference in Chicago, 17-20 November 2022.
I co-wrote, with Dr. Helen M. Rozwadowski, a blog post on "Reckoning with a Racist Legacy in Ocean Science" for the International Commission of the History of Oceanography in June 2020.
Recent articles:
“Water as the Medium of Measurement: Mapping Global Oceans in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” Ch 5 in Hydrohumanities: Water Discourse and Environmental Futures, edited by Kim DeWolff, Rina Faletti, and Ignacio López-Calvo, pp. 118-140. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021).
“Finding the History of the World at the Bottom of the Ocean: Hydrography, Natural History, and the Sea in the Nineteenth Century.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 110, no. 4 (July 2021): 117-132.
w/ Dr. Helen M. Rozwadowski, "Maury for Modern Times: Navigating a Racist Legacy in Ocean Science," Oceanography 33, 3 (September 2020): 8-13.
"Meteorology as Nationalism on the German Atlantic Expedition, 1925-1927." History of Meteorology 8, Relocating Meteorology (December 2017): 124-144.
"Every Ship a Floating Observatory: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Acquisition of Knowledge at Sea." In Soundings and Crossings: Doing Science at Sea 1800-1970, edited by Katharine Anderson and Helen M. Rozwadowski (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications/Watson Publishing International, 2016): 17-48.
"Matthew Fontaine Maury: Scientist." In "Forum: Reconsidering Matthew Fontaine Maury," International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 2 (May 2016): 402-410.
I have reviewed scholarly books for Science, Technology and Culture, The British Journal for the History of Science, International Journal of Maritime History, Endeavour, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, History: Review of New Books, Global Maritime History, H-Environment, H-Water, H-War, The Michigan Historical Review, Michigan War Studies Review, and Anthropological Forum.
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