Personal profile
Research interests
Professor Oren Harman is Senior Research Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, and teaches at the Graduate Program in Science Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University. He was trained in history and biology at the Hebrew University, Oxford, and Harvard, and is a historian of science and a writer. His books include The Man Who Invented the Chromosome (Harvard, 2004), Rebels, Mavericks and Heretics in Biology (Yale, 2008), Outsider Scientists (Chicago, 2013), Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences (Chicago, 2018), Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018, and Handbook of the Historiography of Biology (Springer, 2020). His book The Price of Altruism (W.W. Norton, 2010) (Bodley Head/Random House, 2010) won the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Book of the Year in Science and Technology, was nominated for the Pulitzer prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Professor Harman has written widely for popular and professional audiences on genetics, evolution, history and philosophy of science, altruism, biography, and science and mythology. He has been a frequent contributor to The New Republic and Haaretz Magazine, and is the co-creator of the Israeli Oscar-nominated documentary series "Did Herzl Really Say That?". Oren's work has been featured in The New York Times, The London Times, Nature, Science, The Economist, Forbes, Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Review of Books, RADIOLAB. It has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Rothschild Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He lectures widely, and has been a guest of the Marine Biological Laboratories, Woods Hole; the Pasteur Institute, Hong Kong; the European Molecular Biology Laboratories, Heidelberg; the Humanities Center, Yale University; The Royal Society of Arts, London; the Department of History of Science, Harvard University; the Evolution Department, Freie University; Amrita University, India; the Edinburgh Book Festival; the World Science Festival, the Oxford Literary Festival, Berwin's Salon. He was awarded both the Excellence in Teaching Award by his university and in its Excellence in Research Award. Oren grew up in New York and Jerusalem where he lives with his wife, Yael, and their three little children. He sings bass with the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir.
Education/Academic qualification
PhD
… → Jan 2001
Award Date: 1 Jan 2001
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Is There Really ‘Nothing Unnatural in Nature’?
Harman, O., 2023, (Accepted/In press) In: European Legacy. 3-4Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
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"Keep the Faith:" Memories of Everett Mendelson
Harman, O., 1 Dec 2023, In: Journal of the History of Biology. 56, 4, p. 611-614 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
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On Butterflies and Truths
Harman, O. & Daston, L., Jul 2023, In: Köpfe und Ideen. p. 32-49Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
‘History will be kind to me’: An introduction to new directions in the historiography of genetics
Lamm, E. & Harman, O., Jun 2023, In: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 99, p. A1-A3Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University
Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial
Open Access -
A Conversation with Darwin on Man Revisited: 150 Years to The Descent of Man
Harman, O., Mar 2022, In: Journal of the History of Biology. 55, 1, p. 185-201 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate