Jesse Olszynko-Gryn is Head of the Laboratory for Oral History and Experimental Media in Department II. His research converges on the history of reproduction, technology, and communication in Europe and the United States since around 1900.
He is the author of the book, A Woman’s Right to Know: Pregnancy Testing in Twentieth-Century Britain (MIT Press, 2023), as well as articles and chapters on time-lapse cinematography, science fiction cinema, feminist health activism, and contraceptive technologies. He has co-edited two special issues: Reproduction on Film (British Journal for the History of Science, 2017) and Reproductive Politics in Twentieth-Century France and Britain (Medical History, 2019). His current project is a collaboration with patient groups and other partners to historically explore how diverse, self-assembled communities have produced, communicated, and challenged biomedical, demographic, and other kinds of reproductive knowledge.
Olszynko-Gryn received his doctorate in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge in 2014. He subsequently held positions there as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, where he remains an affiliated scholar, and as a chancellor’s fellow at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He has worked as a visiting scholar in the Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, a visiting fellow at the French Institute for Advanced Studies in Lyon, and a visiting lecturer at Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.
Experience
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2023–presentResearcher, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
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2019–2023Chancellor's Fellow, University of Strathclyde
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2015–2019Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
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2013–2015Research Associate, University of Cambridge
Education
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2014University of Cambridge, PhD History and Philosophy of Science
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2010University of Cambridge, MPhil History and Philosophy of Science
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2006McGill University, BSc Environment
Grants and Contracts
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2020Risky hormones, pregnant patients and the contested science of birth defects: the rise and fall of hormone pregnancy tests in the FRG and UK, 1950-81
- Role:
- Co-PI
- Funding Source:
- AHRC-DFG
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2015Pregnancy testing over the counter, in activism, and at home: Britain, c.1970-2015
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Wellcome Trust
- Berlin, Germany
- Website
- Article Feed
- ORCID
- Joined
