As of 1 December 2009, Ida Stamhuis, a historian of science from Amsterdam, has been appointed Honorary Professor at the Department of Science Studies, Aarhus University.

Professor Stamhuis has connections with the Department of Science Studies through her work with Centaurus, an internationally recognised history of science journal, which has been edited from the department for many years. On 1 September 2009, Professor Stamhuis took over the editorship of Centaurus, having held the position of associate editor of the journal since 2007. In her new role, Professor Stamhuis would like to further cultivate the relationship between the Department of Science Studies, Centaurus, which has been the official journal for the European Society for the History of Science for the past couple of years, and the broader European community of historians of science.

Professor Stamhuis began her academic career writing her thesis on statistics in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. She then studied the life and career of Tine Tammes, the first professor of genetics in the Netherlands and the second Dutch female professor. Tine Tammes gained important genetic insights through her use of a probabilistic framework. The essay was awarded the Women in Science Prize of the American History of Science Society. Professor Stamhuis also pointed to the importance of the use of statistics by the famous Dutch geneticist Hugo de Vries, one of the three re-discoverers of Mendel’s laws. In cooperation with economic and social historians, she edited two sizable publications on the Dutch Statistical Mind, one on the period 1750–1850 (2002) and one on 1850–1940 (2008). In these books, the wide-ranging causes and consequences of the developing statistical mind are explored from scientific, economic, social, political, bureaucratic and technological perspectives.

As Honorary Professor at the Department of Science Studies, Ida Stamhuis will participate in the current scientific activities of the department through either teaching or research.

For more information, please contact

Ida Stamhuis
Department of Science Studies
Faculty of Science
C. F. Møllers Allé, building 1110
8000 Aarhus C
+45 8942 3512
ih.stamhuis@few.vu.nl