Matthias Heymann

Membership:  2016

Member Bio

Matthias Heymann is an associate professor for the history of technology at the Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focuses on the history of environmental science and technology. He has published on the history of energy technologies, the history of atmospheric and climate research, and the history of engineering design. He led a Danish-US research project on the history of science and technology in Cold War Greenland (2010-2013) and currently leads the project "Shaping Cultures of Prediction: Knowledge, Authority, and the Construction of Climate Change." He is Associate Editor of  and Domain Editor of WIREs Climate Change for the Domain Climate, History, Society, Culture. At the Rachel Carson Center he will investigate the use of cases of natural disaster as a lens to analyse human interaction with technology and environment and relations of culture and environment ("environmental coherence").

Publications

  • "Die physikalischen Umweltwissenschaften und das Militär: Zur Erforschung Grönlands im Kalten Krieg." In Physik im Kalten Krieg, Beiträge zur Physikgeschichte des Ost-West-Konflikts, edited by Christian Forstner and Dieter Hoffmann, 33–42. Wiesbaden: Springer Spektrum, 2013.
  • "The Evolution of Climate Ideas and Knowledge." Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change 1. no. 3 (2010): 581–597. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.61/full.
  • "Constructing Evidence and Trust: How Did Climate Scientists' Confidence in Their Models and Simulations Emerge?" In The Social Life of Climate Change Models: Anticipating Nature, edited by Kirsten Hastrup and Martin Skrydstrup, 203–224. New York: Routledge, 2012.
  • "Introduction: Perspectives on Cold War Science in Small European States." Centaurus 53 (2013): 221–242. (co-authored with Janet Martin-Nielsen)
  • "Natural Disaster and Environmental Coherence: Lessons from a Storm, Flood, and a Hurricane." In Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life, edited by Christina Barboza and Vladimir Jankovic, 99–106. Rio de Janeiro: MAST, 2009.