Professional Affiliation
Associate Professor, University of Maryland College Park
Expert Bio
Melinda Baldwin is the AIP Endowed Professor (Associate) in History of Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland College Park. She is the author of "Making 'Nature': The History of a Scientific Journal" (U. Chicago Press, 2015) and has been interviewed about her work on scientific publishing and peer review for The Atlantic, Austrian National Radio鈥檚 ORF-Radiothek, Germany鈥檚 Deutschlandradio, BBC Radio鈥檚 The Naked Scientists, and Science Friday鈥檚 Undiscovered. She holds a BS from Davidson College, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from Princeton University.
Expertise
- Cold War
- History
- Science and Technology
- Society and Culture
乐鱼 体育 Project
"In Referees We Trust? Peer review and public policy in the US, 1945-1990."
Project Summary
This project investigates the development of peer review in the sciences. Many modern observers consider peer review the essential mechanism that protects the trustworthiness of science. But for much of refereeing鈥檚 early history, it was seen as an optional bureaucratic process. How did it become a prerequisite for scientific credibility in the eyes of both scientists and laymen? Debates over how grant proposals were reviewed at US government agencies during the Cold War seem to have been one key to the establishment of a link between peer review and scientific legitimacy. This project will explore how and why US federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Office of Naval Research adopted refereeing practices for scientific grants or contracts, and will analyze how these agencies鈥 refereeing practices changed and developed over time.
Major Publications
- Melinda Baldwin, 鈥淪cientific autonomy, public accountability, and the rise of 鈥榩eer review鈥 in the Cold War United States,鈥 Isis 109 no. 3 (2018): 538鈥558.
- Melinda Baldwin, 鈥淐redibility, peer review, and Nature, 1939-1990,鈥 Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 69 no. 3 (2015): 337鈥352.
- 鈥淭o reform peer review, we need to understand its past,鈥 Nature Reviews Physics 3 (2021): 600鈥601.
