Menu Close
Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, James Cook University

I am an historian of science and technology specializing in the history of the life sciences and the history of information technology. My first book, Life out of sequence: a data driven history of bioinformatics (Chicago, 2013), examined the transformational role of computers and databases in recent biology. I am also the author of Biotechnology and society: an introduction (Chicago, 2016) and the co-editor (with Sarah Richardson) of Postgenomics: Perspectives on Biology After the Genome (Duke, 2015).

My work crosses between history and anthropology and more recently I have written about the political and social impacts of artificial intelligence, big data, and surveillance technologies, particularly in an Asian context. I am currently completing a book about the rise of the life sciences in China.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, James Cook University

Education

  • 2010 
    Harvard University, PhD (History of Science)