Graeme John Norman Gooday


Graeme John Norman Gooday is a British historian and philosopher of science currently working as Professor of History of Science and Technology at the University of Leeds, where he was Head of School between 2014 and 2019. His research encompasses the history and philosophy of technology: especially electrical technologies, telecommunications, and auditory technologies. He has published extensively on measurement, gender and technology, women in engineering, and histories of patenting.

Education

Gooday's PhD dissertation was on 'Precision Measurement and the Genesis of Physics Teaching Laboratories in Victorian Britain' and he won the 1988-9 British Society for the History of Science for his essay on this topic. His first book The Morals of Measurement: accuracy, irony and trust in late Victorian electrical practice extended his key work on measurement and was published by in 2004.

Career and awards

Gooday returned to the University of Kent in 1989 to complete an fellowship in Electrical History and then a Postdoctoral Fellowship. Then in 1992 he moved to the University of Oxford to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology before becoming a Lecturer in History History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. He was President of the in 2011 and has held various positions in the British Society for the History of Science, including Treasurer and, more recently, Finance Committee member. In 2014 he won the British Society for the History of Science prize for his co-authored book The awarding panel described the book as a 'superbly scholarly volume offers a richly wrought set of case studies of electrical technologies including telephony, incandescent lighting, electrical power and wireless communication in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries'. He has led a number of research projects sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, including projects on: telecommunications and intellectual property in the First World War, telecommunications and hearing loss, and electrification of country houses
His research on hearing loss and domesticating electricity has been used to inform museum exhibitions based in the Leeds and the Minneapolis . The royalties from his recent book on the history of hearing loss will be split between the charity ' ' and the National Deaf Children's Society.
He has made a number of media appearances and publications. and published on .

Notable works