History of Science

Entry requirements

Online applications to the program are made via the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Applicants will have completed their bachelor's degree by the time of taking up the program at Harvard.

It is desirable to have some preliminary training in the natural or social sciences and in history.

Months of entry

August

Course content

The Department of the History of Science at Harvard offers a one-year AM, in addition to the PhD degree. This requires students to be in full-time residence for one academic year.

The Department of the History of Science is a lively interdisciplinary community of scholars and students who seek to advance understanding of science, technology, and medicine in their historical and social contexts. History of Science, Technology, and Medicine is an academic discipline of great scope and international reach that connects the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It deals with important questions about the rise and impact of science, medicine, and technology, both east and west, and at all periods, including the very recent past. Department faculty are trained in a variety of fields: in history and history of science, physics, biology, anthropology, sociology, medicine, law, Science, Technology, and Society (STS), and philosophy. We are methodologically pluralistic, encouraging students to draw on an array of approaches, among them book history, technical analyses, and economic history as well as filmmaking, material culture, participant-observation, and museology.

Courses in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be taken by cross-registration, as may courses in Science, Technology and Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

Fees and funding

British citizens who are – or will be – graduates of British universities should check out both Kennedy Scholarships and Frank Knox Fellowships.

Both of these awards offer full tuition and health insurance coverage and a generous stipend towards living expenses. They are offered annually in competition.

Please note that you will need to submit your application to either or both awards ahead of the deadline for your (totally separate and independent) Harvard application. Kennedy Scholarship and Frank Knox Fellowship applications are to be made online via their websites between mid-August and late-October in the same application season as you will submit your application to Harvard. Awards made at interview in London in January are provisional, pending confirmation of a place on the course.