Hasok Chang


Hasok Chang is a Korean-born American historian and philosopher of science currently serving as the Hans Rausing Professor at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and a board member of the Philosophy of Science Association. He previously served as president of the British Society for the History of Science from 2012 to 2014.
His areas of interest include the history and philosophy of chemistry and physics, the philosophy of scientific practice, measurement in quantum mechanics, realism, scientific evidence, pluralism and pragmatism.

Early life and education

Chang was born in Seoul in 1967 to Korean civil servant Che-Shik Chang and teacher Woo Sook Choi. Chang is the younger brother of economist Ha-Joon Chang and cousin of economist and Korea University professor Hasung Jang. He is married to psychotherapist Gretchen Siglar.
Chang studied at Northfield Mount Hermon School, Massachusetts where he was valedictorian in 1985, and was a visiting student at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. He graduated at the California Institute of Technology in 1989 with a B.S. Honors in an Independent Studies Program, concentrating on theoretical physics and philosophy. He went to Stanford University where he completed his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1993. His dissertation topic was entitled,
Measurement and the Disunity of Quantum Physics. He was also a visiting graduate student at Harvard University.

Career and awards

Chang was a research associate in physics at Harvard University from July 1993 to December 1994. In 1995 he moved to the United Kingdom where he worked as a lecturer at University College London's Department of Science and Technology Studies, becoming a professor in 2008. Chang moved to the University of Cambridge in 2010, becoming the Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science.
He worked as a consultant on BBC Four's series and Channel 4's Genius of Britain: The Scientists Who Changed the World. He appeared on EBS's series Chang Hasok's Science Meets Philosophy from February to May 2014, where he delivered lectures in Korean.
Chang is a founding member of the Committee for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science and the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, and he served as president of the British Society for the History of Science from 2012 to 2014 and vice-president from 2014 to 2015. He won the Lakatos Award in 2006 for his book Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress and in 2013 he won the Fernando Gil International Prize for the Philosophy of Science for his book Is Water ?: Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. On 10 May 2016 he gave the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture at the Royal Society.

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