Luis A. Campos posing in front of a bookshelf
Alumni

Luis A. Campos

Visiting Scholar (Jul 2021-Oct 2021)

Prof.

Luis A. Campos received his PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University in 2006, with studies in the history of the modern experimental biology, focusing on the intertwined histories of the early sciences of radioactivity and genetics. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the MPIWG in 2007–2008 in Dept Rheinberger, and served as assistant professor at Drew University from 2006–2012, before being appointed Associate Professor and Regents' Lecturer in the History Department at the University of New Mexico, where he has been since 2012. He currently serves as the Secretary of the History of Science Society, and recently held the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 2022, he will take up the Baker College Chair for History of Science, Technology and Innovation at Rice University. Trained in both biology and the history of science, Campos’ scholarship brings together archival discoveries with contemporary fieldwork at the intersection of biology and society. He has written widely on the history of genetics and synthetic biology and is the author or co-editor of Making Mutations: Objects, Practices, Contexts (2010), Radium and the Secret of Life (2015), and Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds (2021).

Projects

No current projects were found for this scholar.

Life as It Could Be: Synthetic Biology, Astrobiology, and the Future of Life

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Mutatis Mutandis: The Shifting Meaning of Mutation

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Radium and the Secret of Life

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Synthetic Biology: Engineering Life in the Test Tube

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Presentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities

Pandora’s Pandemic: Infectious Futures at the Dawn of Genetic Engineering

George Sarton Memorial Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Genetic Sputniks: Remaking Life on Earth (and Elsewhere)

History Department, Rice University

Chance Encounters of Life

Pohflepp in Practice, Haus der Kulturen der Welt

The Spirit of Asilomar: Familiar Frontiers in Engineering Life

Scientific Citizenship Initiative, Harvard Medical School

Here Be Dragons

Lebensformen, Haus der Kulturen der Welt