Patricia Fara | |
---|---|
![]() Fara in 2018 | |
Known for | Women in science |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History of science |
Institutions | University of Cambridge |
Patricia Fara is a college lecturer in the history of science at Clare College,Cambridge. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford and did her PhD at the University of London. [1] She is a former Fellow of Darwin College and is an Emerita Fellow of Clare College,where she was previously Director of Studies in the History and Philosophy and Science. [2] Fara was also a College Teaching Officer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. [3] From 2016 to 2018,Fara was President of the British Society for the History of Science. In 2016,she became President of the Antiquarian Horological Society. [4] [5] Fara is author of numerous popular books on the history of science and has been a guest on BBC Radio 4's science and history discussion series In Our Time . [6]
Fara began her career as a physics teacher but returned to graduate studies as a mature student to specialise in History and Philosophy of Science,completing her PhD thesis at Imperial College,London,in 1993. [7] [8]
Her areas of particular academic interest include the role of portraiture and art in the history of science,science in 18th-century England during the Enlightenment,and the role of women in science. She has written about numerous women in science,mathematics,engineering and medicine,including:Hertha Ayrton,Lady Helen Gleichen,Mona Chalmers Watson,Helen Gwynne-Vaughan,Isabel Emslie Hutton,Flora Murray,Ida Maclean,Marie Stopes,and Martha Annie Whiteley. [7] [9] [10] [11] [12] Fara has argued for expanded access to childcare as a means of increasing the retention of women in science. [4] She has written and co-authored a number of books for children on science. Fara is also a reviewer of books on history of science. [13] She has written the award-winning Science:A Four Thousand Year History (2009) [14] [15] and Erasmus Darwin:Sex,Science,and Serendipity (2012). [16] Her most recent book is A Lab of One's Own:Science and Suffrage in the First World War (2017). [17] [18] [19] In 2013,Fara published an article in the journal Nature,stressing the fact that biographies of female scientists perpetuate stereotypes. [20]
![]() |