The Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies doubled its roster of senior Faculty this week when Katherine Park '72 was appointed as Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone Radcliffe professor.
Park, a leading scholar in the history of medieval and Renaissance science, will be jointly tenured with the Department of the History of Science.
Currently a professor of history at Wellesley College, Park has maintained ties with Harvard since she graduated from Radcliffe with an A.B. in History and Literature in 1972.
Park, who could not be reached yesterday, earned her Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard in 1981 and returned a decade later for a fellowship at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College.
Park's soon-to-be colleague in the History of Science Department, Professor Everett I. Mendelsohn, described her as part of "a new wave of scholars" that combine many disciplines.
Park's works, which include Doctors and Medicine in Renaissance Florence (Princeton University Press, 1985) and her current project, Wonders and the Order of Nature, draw on historical, scientific and cultural sources.
"She can find a story in an old coin or engraving as well as in a traditional archive," said Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Phillips professor of early American history and Harvard's other professor of Women's Studies.
Mendelsohn praised Park's innovative approach to the study of the history of science.
"Katie Park is a first-rate scholar who very nicely crosses disciplines in her work--she includes art history and literary history in the history of science, for example," he said.
At Wellesley, Park taught courses in Western civilization; Renaissance Italy and Florence; medieval and Renaissance intellectual and cultural history; and the history of medicine.
Her special interests include the cultural origins of human dissection and the history of sexuality and gender, according to her Wellesley biography.
"She's both broad and specialized," said Professor of Romance and Comparative Literature Susan R. Suleiman, who added that Park brings several interesting new courses "Her area is chiefly in the Renaissance, but she has also proposed some very interesting courses in modern science and medicine," Suleiman said. Ulrich also noted that Park will be an important resource for students. "I am especially pleased that we have someone who can bridge the sciences and the humanities because we have so many dual concentrators or students who are contemplating going into a medical field," she said. In her spare time, Park enjoys reading science fiction and caring for her three cats, according to her biography
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