Dr Stephen Johnston

Head of Research, Teaching and Collections

History of Science Museum

01865 (2)77282

stephen.johnston@hsm.ox.ac.uk

I became Head of Research, Teaching and Collections at the History of Science Museum in 2018, having first joined the Museum as Assistant Keeper in 1995. I have curated exhibitions on a broad range of themes within the history of science, from Al-Mizan: Sciences and Arts in the Islamic World (2010) to Geek is Good (2014). Previously I was a curator and special projects officer at the Science Museum London.

I studied History and Philosophy of Science at both undergraduate and graduate level at the University of Cambridge, completing my doctorate on Elizabethan practical mathematics under the supervision of Jim Bennett.

History of Science Museum

Research
Publications

Research

My research is centred on the practical mathematical arts – from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy and naval architecture – especially in the Renaissance, but also extending to 18th- and 19th-century topics. I have a particular interest in the history of mathematical instruments and in digital approaches to their analysis and interpretation. My books include The Geometry of War, 1500-1750, with Jim Bennett (Oxford: MHS, 1996) and Compass and Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England, 1500-1750, with Anthony Gerbino (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009).

Publications