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Mark Schiefsky Named Professor of the Classics
Cambridge, Mass. - November 15, 2007 - Mark Schiefsky, a historian of ancient science whose expertise ranges from medicine to mechanics, has been appointed professor of the classics in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2007.
Schiefsky, 37, has taught in the classics department at Harvard since January 2000. He served as director of undergraduate studies for the department from 2001 to 2003 and from 2004 to 2005.
"Professor Schiefsky is recognized internationally for his work on the history of ancient science," said Diana Sorensen, dean for the humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "His interdisciplinary approach to philosophy, philology and science has helped to advance scholarship on the classics. We are delighted that he will continue to research and teach at Harvard."
Schiefsky investigated the history of Greek medicine in his book "Hippocrates: On Ancient Medicine" (Brill, 2005). The work provides a translation and extensive commentary on the famed treatise ascribed to Hippocrates, and addresses important historical and philosophical questions regarding its argument, authorship and intended audience. Schiefsky also illuminates the relation of the treatise to the later school of medical Empiricism.
In addition to the history of ancient medicine, Schiefsky is deeply interested in the history of ancient mechanics and engineering. Through a close examination of literary sources from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., Schiefsky's work emphasizes that craftsmen were able to engineer complicated devices without understanding the mathematical theory behind their construction.
A talented software designer, Schiefsky also played an instrumental role in the launching of the Archimedes Project (http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu). The program, funded by the National Science Foundation and run jointly by the Department of the Classics at Harvard and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, aims to make historical source texts on the history of mechanics and engineering available in digital form to scholars worldwide. Schiefsky developed innovative language-based technology to improve search capabilities for documents written in Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Italian.
Schiefsky holds a B.A. in classics and astronomy from the University of Michigan, as well as a B.A. in classics from the University of Cambridge. He received a Ph.D. in classical philosophy from Harvard in 1999, and served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin from 1999-2000. Schiefsky became an assistant professor at Harvard in 2000 and was named associate professor in 2005.
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