Past Short-Term Fellows

Past Roy G. Neville Fellows

Summer 2006
The 2006 Roy G. Neville Fellows were Victor Boantza, Cesare Pastorino, and Brigitte Van Tiggelen.

Victor Boantza
Boantza received his B.A. in philosophy and history and his M.A. in philosophy from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. His research includes the geneology of chemical concepts, the didactic origins of chemistry, shifts in chemical method, matter theories, chemical philosophies, imponderable fluid theories, and the relationships between chemistry, culture, and natural philosophy. While at CHF, Boantza looked to set the chemical program of the early Parisian Academy of Sciences against the background of the French chemical textbook tradition and Paracelsian and Helmontain trends in chemical philosophy.

Cesare Pastorino
Pastorino's research is on the history of science and medicine in the early modern period, with a particular focus on seventeenth-century natural philosophy. His dissertation as a Ph.D. candidate in the history and philosophy of science at Indiana University explores the role of alchemy in the work of Francis Bacon. While a Neville Fellow Pastorino conducted a study of the mythological imagery of Proteus used by Renaissance and Baroque alchemists, with an emphasis on the alchemical background of the Baconian account of this myth.

Brigitte Van Tiggelen
Van Tiggelen's project examined the work of the physician J. Mongin and his mechanical philosophy of chemistry. As a Neville Fellow, she placed Mongin's work in the context of Descartes and Newton's understanding of corpuscularisms as important for the shaping of the foundations of the discipline. With this research she hopes to better understand the transition from alchemy to chemistry through Mongin's ideosyncratic approach to medicine and chemistry.

Summer 2005
The 2005 Roy G. Neville Fellows were Dane Thor Daniel, Allison Kavey, and Lisa Rosner.

Dane Thor Daniel
Daniel earned a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from Indiana University and is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a Neville Fellow at CHF, he explored the theory-praxis relationship in Paracelsus' medical treatments while reassessing the natural philosophy of Paracelsus in the light of the Swiss-German iconoclast's Biblical exegesis. Daniel is an assistant professor of history at Wright State University Lake Campus in Celina, OH.

Allison Kavey
Kavey is an assistant professor at CUNY's John Jay College and received her Ph.D. from the history of science, medicine, and technology department at the Johns Hopkins University. During her time as a Neville Fellow, Kavey researched her next major project on the changing constructions of desire in popular natural philosophical texts printed in England between 1580 and 1680. She analyzed these texts in order to pursue the transition from a mimicking nature to art subduing and dominating nature.

Lisa Rosner
During her tenure as a Neville Fellow, Rosner investigated the question of the audience for popular chemistry works and lectures from the 1790s through the 1860s. Following late 18th century scientific innovations, chemistry became a hot topic on both the popular lecture circuit and in literary circles. Rosner used the Neville collection to explore the extent to which authors formed a conscious network to promote popular understanding of chemistry. Rosner received her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. She is currently a professor of history at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and adjunct graduate faculty at Rutgers University, Camden and Newark campuses.


Summer 2004
The 2004 Roy G. Neville Fellows were Kathleen Sands and Mark Waddell.

Kathleen Sands
DeVry University
As Neville Fellow, Sands, who holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Arizona, continued her research into the intersections of science and religion. This study examined the applications of alchemical principles to a variety of endeavors, including medicine, religion, art, and psychology. Sands is working on her third book, a historical study of alchemy in America.

Mark Waddell
While in residence at CHF, Mark Waddell's research focused on several Jesuit treatises on natural and artificial magic, particularly those by Athanasius Kircher, Gaspar Schott, and Francesco Lana Terzi. He situated these texts within the wider religious and scientific goals of the Jesuit order in the 17th century.