Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of History of Science and Ideas.
Christer Nordlund is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of History of Science and Ideas. He is studying the cultural, material and intellectual history of science, technology, medicine, and the environment from ca. 1700 onward, mainly in a Scandinavian context. His research has been focused on three subjects: the history of the field sciences, i.e. geology, plant geography, ecology, archaeology, and field institutions; the history of endocrinology and the links between life science, medicine and industry; and environmental history, i.e. the co-construction of environmental science, environmental politics, and environmental problems. He has also taken an interest in current science policy and theories of research organization, cooperation, and creativity.
Nordlund received his Ph.D. in the History of Science and Ideas at Umeå University in 2001. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 2002, Senior Lecturer in 2004, Associate Professor in 2005, and Professor in 2010. He was associated with the Swedish Research Council in 2002; was a Visiting Rausing Scholar at the Office for History of Science, Uppsala University in 2003; a Visiting STINT scholar at the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, in 2004; a Visiting Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala in 2007 and 2011; and a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin 2010–2011. He was "Torgny Segerstedt Scholar" within the framework of the research program Pro Futura Scientia 2007–2014. In 2008, Nordlund was awarded a "Young Researcher Award" from Umeå University.
At the Faculty of Arts, Nordlund has been responsible for coordinating the multidisciplinary research field Umeå Studies in Science, Technology and Environment (USSTE). He has directed three interdisciplinary research projects, one on the history of bio fuels called "The Fuel of the Future" (Formas), one on the history of forestry and forest science, which was part of the research program "Future Forests" (Mistra), and one on the new gene technology Crispr/Cas9 and its ethical challanges (MAW).
In addition to a number of articles and reviews in scholarly journals such as Annals of Science, British Journal for the History of Science, Earth Sciences History, Environment and History, History and Technology, Isis, Journal of Northern Studies, Lychnos, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Nordlund has published the books Kamerajägaren (co-ed. 2010), Hormones of Life (2011), Motorspriten kommer (co-author. 2014) and Understanding Field Science Institutions (co-ed. 2017), and the popular books Vägar till vetenskapen (ed. 2013), Vetandets världar (2019) and Ingen självklarhet (co-ed. 2020). Together with Madeleine Hayenhjelm he is currently working on a book entitled The Ethics of Human Gene Editing: A Philosophical Guide to the Arguments.
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Member of the Royal Skyttean Society; member of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) board; member of International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO); member of Editorial Board of the year book Lychnos; Life Member of Clare Hall college in Cambridge. Former member of the Young Academy of Sweden.
Nordlund is frequently engaged in review work for national and international universities, research funding bodies, and journals.