Arnold Thackray

Arnold Thackray (born 30 July 1939) is an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has held academic positions at institutions, including a visiting fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, and a fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has also taught at the London School of Economics, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He was the founding chair of the Department of History and Sociology of Science and now holds the title of Joseph Priestley Professor Emeritus.

Thackray was the founding director of the institution originally established as the Chemical Heritage Foundation, now known as the Science History Institute.

Early life and education Thackray was born in Manchester England on 30 July 1939.

At the age of 10, he was awarded a Foundation Scholarship to attend Manchester Grammar School.

A year earlier, Thackray had already become the first graduate student at Churchill College to be elected a Fellow of the college.

Academic and professional career Thackray decided to seek his BTA—his 'been to America' degree. In September 1967 he intermitted his Fellowship to accept a one-year visiting lectureship at Harvard University, fully intending to return to the original Cambridge.

In 1969 he became director of a joint Penn-Bryn Mawr-American Philosophical Society graduate program in the history of medicine and the biological sciences. As chairman of the brand-new HSS Department, Thackray drew on faculty members from such disciplinary areas of the university as history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, English, and American civilization.

Thackray was a member of the Penn faculty for 28 years, retiring in 1996 as Joseph Priestley Professor emeritus.

His academic research has focused on the rise of modern science since the death of Isaac Newton, and on the interactions between the scientific community and society as a whole. He has mentored twenty PhD students and authored or edited a wide variety of scholarly books and articles. Additionally, he has been a member of the History of Science Society Executive Committee and editor of Isis and the HSS Newsletter (1978-1985), while also relaunching and editing Osiris (1984-1994). Additionally, Thackray has held visiting professorships at Bryn Mawr College (1968 through 1973), the London School of Economics (1971-1972), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1978),

Chemical Heritage Foundation A 1979-1980 task force led by chemist/historian John H. Wotiz resulted in a recommendation to the American Chemical Society that it create a center for the history of chemistry. In 1981, the American Chemical Society solicited proposals to develop such a center. Late in 1983, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) became a co-sponsor.

In 1987 CHOC was promised its first endowment.

Thackray sought to move CHF to a home of its own somewhere in the greater Philadelphia (Wilmington, DE to Princeton, NJ) area. In 1993 CHF purchased the First National Bank, which stood in the backyard of Benjamin Franklin's home, within what by the 1980s had become Philadelphia's Independence National Park. The build-out of this 1865 structure into a modern 120,000 sq. ft. facility took over a decade of planning and fundraising. The repurposed complex eventually included offices, archives, and space for the Othmer Library (itself steadily growing in size and stature as an internationally-acclaimed resource). The home of CHF would eventually include a capacious public museum designed by Ralph Appelbaum. The overall project was complete in 2008. Under Thackray's tenure, CHF steadily expanded its scope, its sponsoring organizations, its repertoire of visiting academic scholars, and its activities around the country and overseas. An annual Othmer Gold Medal was inaugurated in 1997, to honor individuals contributing to science through innovation, entrepreneurship, research, legislation, and philanthropy. The Award’s four sponsors were the ACS, the AIChE, The Chemists' Club, and the Société de Chimie Industrielle (American Section). A growing series of other medals and prizes followed, in partnership with relevant organizations in the USA and abroad, to honor pioneers in fields ranging from materials science to biotechnology.

Thackray served as president of CHF until 2009, after which time he served a seven-year term as Chancellor. Over the 28 years of his active leadership of a growing organization, he raised a permanent endowment of $130 million, while investing almost $50 million to create CHF’s home.

Life Sciences Foundation After stepping down as president of CHF, Thackray relocated to Silicon Valley. There he founded the Life Sciences Foundation . The foundation was conceived at a 2009 meeting with four biotechnology industry leaders. The group reasoned that biotech, by then 40 years old, had a poorly understood history. The Life Sciences Foundation was formed in 2011 to capture the stories of the industry’s founders, while increasing awareness of the field’s significance through oral histories, public events, and a variety of publications, including a free magazine.

Awards and honors Thackray was the 1983 recipient of the Dexter Award of the American Chemical Society for his work on the history of chemistry. In 1984, Thackray received the George Sarton Memorial Lecturer Award at the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a presentation entitled "The Historian's Calling in the Age of Science". He was twice awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1971 and 1985).

Personal life Thackray became a citizen of the United States in 1981. He is the father of Helen Thackray, a biotechnology executive. Thackray's wife since 1994 is Diana (née Schueler) Thackray. Walking, gardening, reading, and raising roses have been his hobbies. Chinese translation Moore's law: the life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's quiet revolutionary (2017) Renmin University of China Press

Italian translation Atomi e force (1981) Bologna