Rate My Professor Jacob Hamblin

Jacob Hamblin is a Professor of History in the School of History, Philosophy & Religion at Oregon State University. He earned his PhD in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2001. His scholarship centers on the history and politics of science, technology, and environmental issues, with particular emphasis on nuclear history, radiation exposure, oceanography during the Cold War, radioactive waste disposal, and the promotion of peaceful nuclear technologies in the developing world. Hamblin's writing has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, Science, Salon, and The American Scientist, alongside peer-reviewed articles in journals including Isis, Diplomatic History, Environmental History, and Technology and Culture.

In his career, Hamblin has held prominent editorial roles, including creating and editing over thirty H-Environment Roundtable Reviews from 2010 to 2015, commissioning essay reviews for Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences from 2011 to 2015, and serving as advisory editor for that journal since 2011, for Isis from 2009 to 2011, and on the advisory board of Environmental History from 2013 to 2018. He has chaired selection committees for the George Perkins Marsh Prize in environmental history, the Phil Pauly Prize for best first book in the history of science, and the Usher Prize for best essay in Technology and Culture. At Oregon State University, he has directed three graduate programs and currently directs the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative. His key publications include Oceanographers and the Cold War (2005), Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (2008), Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism (2013, recipient of the American Historical Association's Birdsall Prize and the History of Science Society's Davis Prize), The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology (2021, winner of the Oregon Book Award for general nonfiction), and Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure (2023, co-edited with Linda M. Richards). Hamblin's current research examines the history of radiocarbon dating amid nuclear weapons testing.