STS
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Attention faculty! You can customize this page. Click here for more information
Deborah Fitzgerald
| Room |
E51-255G |
| Phone |
617-253-7752 |
| Email |
dkfitz@mit.edu |
| website |
http://www.mit.edu/~dkfitz |
Deborah Fitzgerald is Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), and Professor of the History of Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at MIT. Professor Fitzgerald received her B.A. from Iowa State University (History and English, 1978) and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (History and Sociology of Science, 1985). Prior to joining the MIT faculty in 1988, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. She received the Provost's Fund Grant from MIT (1989), the Old Dominion Fellowship (1990-1991), Mellon Foundation grant, and National Science Foundation Fellowships for 1991 and 1996.
Her research focuses on the industrialization of agriculture, particularly in 20th century America. She is co-organizer (with Harriet Ritvo) of the MIT Seminar in Environmental and Agricultural History (formerly the Modern Times/Rural Places Seminar). She is the author of The Business of Breeding: Hybrid Corn in Illinois, 1890-1920 (Cornell, 1990), and Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture (Yale University Press, 2003). She is very active in the Society for the History of Technology and is immediate past president of the Agricultural History Society. That organization honored her in 2003 with the Theodore Saloutos Prize for best book of the year.