Sara Schechner

Sara J. Schechner, Ph.D. is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and a Lecturer on History of Science at Harvard University.  Her research, teaching, and exhibitions have earned her many prestigious international awards, including recognition as a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).  She is currently the president of the Inter-Union Commission for History of Astronomy of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST), as well as Vice President of IAU Commission C3 (History of Astronomy), She is also past chair of the AAS Historical Astronomy Division, a founding member of its Working Group for the Preservation of Astronomical Heritage, and on the editorial board  for the Journal for the History of Astronomy. 

Her books include Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (1997), Tangible Things: Making History through Objects (2015, with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich et al.), and Time of Our Lives: Sundials of the Adler Planetarium (2019).  Current research focuses on sundials, science, and social change; the representation of astronomers and their instruments in works of art; and scientific instrument making in America.