I grew up in Minnesota, USA, in a family of scientists. I was academically ambitious across many subjects, excelling especially in mathematics and the humanities. I was also an enthusiastic and moderately skilled trumpet player and enjoyed but did not at all excel in a spectrum of seasonal youth sports from tennis to speedskating. I pursued my twin interests in mathematics and critical humanities at university, and also picked up the French horn. I eventually combined my academic interests in graduate school to become a historian of science.
I now live in Scotland, UK, and work in an interdisciplinary department of social studies of science and technology at the University of Edinburgh. There, I research the history of modern mathematics (broadly construed) and teach the history of science (very broadly construed) and social studies of mathematical sciences (particularly the aspects that are relevant for emerging mathematicians).
I attended the University of Minnesota in various capacities from infancy until adulthood, beginning at the campus childcare center and continuing with summer activities after I started school. I haunted the Chemistry department from before I could reach the conference room blackboard without standing on a chair. I gave my first university outreach talk at age 8 based on my weekend explorations there, and eventually assisted in the lab and qualified to use the NMR facilities on my own after hours. I soon also crossed the campus mall to the Mathematics department, first through its youth outreach programs, then as an UMTYMP student, then in classes for advanced students via the PSEO and IT Honors programs, and doing a little research directed by Vic Reiner.
When not at 'the U' I attended state schools in Roseville Minnesota. I first introduced myself to a stranger as a historian while a primary school student at Parkview Center School, when I helped represent its School Forest project at a local event. I was a valedictorian of Roseville Area High School in 2005.
At Cornell University I graduated in 2008 with highest honors (summa cum laude) in both Mathematics and the College Scholar program, mentored respectively by Robert Strichartz and Michael Lynch. For the latter, I was able to choose the title 'History, Sociology, and Philosophy of Mathematics' for my degree subject, though in retrospect something like 'Literary and Cultural Criticism of Mathematics' would have been more accurate. I was a member of the Cornell Branch of Telluride Association and elected branch president (Advisory Committee chair) in my final semester. As far as I am aware, I was the first undergraduate to be admitted to and participate in Cornell's Summer graduate and postdoctoral School of Criticism and Theory, in 2007.
A Marshall Scholarship took me to the United Kingdom for Masters degrees at St. John's College, Cambridge (2009), where I was also a Benefactors' Scholar of the college, and the University of Edinburgh (2010). My Edinburgh degree was for research mentored by Donald MacKenzie.
While visiting family in Chicago as a high school student, I had made an appointment to talk with someone from the Mathematics department at the University of Chicago ahead of applying to study there, and that professor told me that anyone serious about mathematics should go to Princeton for graduate school and go somewhere else that prepared them for Princeton as an undergraduate. This was surely a factor in my identifying the Princeton Mathematics department in my successful National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship proposal for a project mixing mathematical research with history and science studies. When I actually applied to that department, one thing led to another and I ended up with an offer from the Program in History of Science instead.
This turned out to be an excellent setting and community for my PhD, mentored by Michael Gordin. The Mathematics department graciously included me on an informal basis, and helped me to develop a foundation for my serious career-long engagement with the discipline as a non-mathematician. I was part of the first cohort (and possibly had the earliest start date) of NSF GROW Fellows, visiting David Aubin's history of mathematics research group at Jussieu in Paris in 2013. From 2014-2016 I wrote up my dissertation as a visiting researcher (courtesy of Liliane Beaulieu) in Montreal, Canada, while my wife finished medical school at McGill University.
In 2007, I was elected to the volunteer board of the Telluride Association, an unusual organization that runs 'self-governing' academic programs for high school and university students. I was a participant and employee of a few of these programs between 2004 and 2008. The Association considers board membership itself as its own extended course of education, one where 'graduation' has been the exception more than the rule, and I was honored to have my petition to graduate accepted in 2022.
My first proper full-time job in education was as a factotum (residential advisor, program administrator, teaching assistant, and sundry) for the 2008 Telluride Association Summer Program at the University of Texas, Austin.
I first designed and led my own courses in 2013: a survey of science in modern Europe as an adjunct professor in History at The College of New Jersey, and a survey of the history of mathematics aimed at advanced mathematics undergraduates as a gradaute instructor in Princeton's department of Mathematics.
Following my doctorate, I was a postdoctoral fellow from 2016-2018 in the Dartmouth College Society of Fellows. During February-March 2018, I was welcomed as a formal visitor to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre. I subsequently moved to Northwestern University for a few months of an NSF postdoctoral fellowship (SES 1826891) with mentor Ken Alder before beginning my lectureship at the University of Edinburgh at the end of 2018.
I am currently Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Edinburgh. For a couple months at the end of 2019 I was visiting faculty at the Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago.
City government. From 2002-2005 I was Secretary of the City of Falcon Heights MN Solid Waste Commission, and acting chair of the commission in 2005.
Mathematics outreach. In 2007-2008 I participated in mathematics outreach through Cornell's Mathematics department's rural schools tutoring project and Expand Your Horizons program. I continued school science and mathematics outreach at Cambridge in 2008-2009. At Princeton I was active through all of 2012-2013 in the Prison Teaching Initiative, teaching algebra and pre-algebra in New Jersey youth correctional facilities.
Editorial and advisory boards. I have been on the advisory board for the History of Science Society's IsisCB bibliography since 2017. I was on the editorial board of the Spectrum book series of the Mathematical Association of America from 2018-2024. I have been an Associate Editor of La Matematica, the flagship journal of the Association for Women in Mathematics, since it launched in 2021. I have been a corresponding editor of Bhāvanā magazine since 2022.
International commissions. I have been active in commissions and sections of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. I was elected First Vice-President of the International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity in 2021 and am currently in my second term (through 2029). I joined the Division of History of Science and Technology's Commission on Bibliography Archives and Records as Secretary (2021-25) and currently serve as President (2025-29).
Professional organization committees.
Young Academy of Scotland. Member, 2022-2027; Communications Group; Advisory Group, 2025-present; Royal Society of Edinburgh School Talks programme, 2022-present.
Telluride Association. Between 2007-2022, I held a long list of elected, officer, and committee chair roles within Telluride Association's board of directors, starting with Secretary in 2007-2008. A condensed curriculum vitae is in my 2022 petition to graduate, which I presume is in the corresponding Proceedings but my membership ended before these were published so I have not been able to confirm this.
Academic governance. University of Edinburgh Academic Senate, 2020-present; Senate Quality Assurance Committee, 2023-2026; Senate Exception Committee, 2022-present; UCU Scotland Academic Governance Working Group, 2024-present.
I have been an honorary parade marshal twice. First, curtailed shortly after departure by a tornado, I was a Youth Grand Marshal of the City of Roseville MN Rose Parade in 2005. Next, in much nicer weather, I was a Degree Marshal for the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, selected to represent my graduating cohort in 2008.
My most significant pre-university recognitions were the 2004 City of Falcon Heights Neal Kwong Youth Citizenship Award, being a national finalist in the 2005 Intel Science Talent Search, and being profiled as an 'Academic All-Star' by an area news station.
Major undergraduate honors include selection as a Dean's Scholar (2005), Goldwater Scholar (2007), and Merrill Presidential Scholar (2008); induction into Phi Beta Kappa (2008); and sharing the Tomasic Prize (outstanding senior thesis, College Scholar Program) and Kieval Prize (outstanding graduate, Mathematics).
As a graduate student, my writing was recognised with the 2010 Joyce Tait Prize in Science Technology and Innovation Studies (MSc dissertation prize), special commendations in the 2010 and 2014 British Society for the History of Science Singer Prize essay competitions, and a special mention in the 2017 Prize for Young Scholars of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Division of History of Science and Technology. Four of my shorter expository essays published as a graduate student and postdoc between 2013 and 2018 were included in the Best Writing on Mathematics anthologies.
My UK professional recognitions include fellowship in the Royal Historical Society (2020), selection as runner-up for the RHS 2022 Innovation in Teaching Award, fellowship (2021, via Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practise) and senior fellowship (2024, via Edinburgh Teaching Award) of the Higher Education Academy, and election to membership in the Young Academy of Scotland (2022-2027). I was one of the British Society for the History of Mathematics inaugural History in Mathematics Education Award holders (2021-2023).
I am chair of the local organizing committee for the 2026 joint meeting of the European Society for the History of Science and the History of Science Society. Hope to see you there!
Some workshops and symposia I have organized:
I have (co-)organized many academic conference sessions, including:
I gave my first formal academic research talk in 2004 at the European Peptide Symposium in Prague and my hundredth around 2018 (probably in Delhi, allowing for some fuzziness in the counting). The running total is surely well over 150. I used to list all the dates and titles on my website but updating became less of a priority (and I stopped counting) shortly after I came off the academic job market, and my publications are now probably a better way to track my evolving research interests.
The best way to reach me is by email to my first name at this website's domain (ending with dot com). My institutional (ed.ac.uk) email is also easy to find using the kinds of transferable literacies we love to imagine to be primary goals of education these days.
My staff page at my employer is here. I have an orcid number but do not use their profile service, and I do not otherwise curate third-party academic profiles on google scholar, scopus, or other platforms. Information on such platforms purporting to be about me is unlikely to be reliable, and third party sites reposting my work (e.g. preprints) do so without my consent. Some of my work appears on second-party repositories (e.g. my employer's research profile tool) where mandated.
Really, if you want to find me or my work you are already in the right place, no need to branch out.
It may be possible to find traces of me on Twitter (@MBarany or @MathHistFacts), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Blogger, Geocities, Livejournal, Google+, or other platforms that I no longer use (or barely used in the first place); sorry for any effort you may have wasted in trying to contact me on any of those. These days my social media activity is mostly on Bluesky @mbarany.com and occasionally on Mastodon @mjb@mathstodon.xyz. I very occasionally post Instagram updates on behalf of my golden retriever @tartantycho.