Dr Catherine Jackson
Dr Catherine Jackson
Dr Jackson is Associate Professor of the History of Science and Director of the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.
Originally trained as a chemist (PhD, Cambridge University, 1989), Jackson worked in industry, academia and education before retraining in the history of science (PhD, University of London, 2009).
Since then, she has revised our understanding of nineteenth-century chemistry by establishing a series of practice-based breakthroughs, including chemistry’s “glassware revolution” and “turn to synthesis.” Worlds in glass enabled chemists to control and manipulate matter.
Her book Molecular World: Making Modern Chemistry (MIT Press, 2023) explained how chemists used what she calls “laboratory reasoning” to produce new theories as well as new industries, driving a critical period in chemistry's quest to know and manipulate organic nature.
Jackson’s current monograph project takes a similar approach to August Kekulé’s celebrated (1865) introduction of a ring structure for benzene. Molecular Puzzles: Re-thinking the Ring will show how practical utility – rather than theoretical correctness – lay behind the success of Kekulé’s benzene ring.
Characterized throughout by its attention to materiality, Jackson’s research and teaching support her engagement with Oxford’s History of Science Museum.
