Rate My Professor Karen Rader

Virginia Commonwealth University

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5.04/23/2026

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About Karen

Karen Rader, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, specializing in the history of science. She joined VCU in 2006 following research and teaching appointments at Princeton University, the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Sarah Lawrence College, where she held the Marilyn Simpson Chair of Science and Society from 1998 to 2006. Rader has also served as a visiting professor at the University of Oslo and the Institute for Advanced Study at Lancaster University in the UK. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University and a B.S. in Biology from Loyola University Maryland.

Rader's scholarship focuses on the intellectual, cultural, and social history of the modern U.S. life sciences, particularly the intersections of U.S. science with social, cultural, and intellectual institutions, including animal standardization in biomedical research and the development of science museums. Her current research examines postwar twentieth-century U.S. informal and adult science education. She authored the award-winning Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955 (Princeton University Press, 2004) and co-authored, with Victoria E.M. Cain, Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2015). She co-edited Animals on Display: The Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014). Rader has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles and essays in journals such as Isis and the Journal of the History of Biology, securing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation (1995, 2002, 2007, 2016), the Mellon Foundation (1995-1996), and others.

In addition to her research, Rader has made significant contributions through teaching and service. At VCU, she developed the Medical Humanities Minor, formerly directed the Science, Technology, and Society program, hosted speaker series on genetics, bioethics, disability, technology, and the art of medicine, and organized science cafes for the Richmond community. She served as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of the History of Biology (2018-2022) and president of the History of Science Society (2022-2023). Since 2013, she has been on the leadership team of VCU’s President’s East Marshall Street Well Project. Her honors include election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013, Section L), the Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the History of Technics (2016), Outstanding Book Award from the History of Education Society (2015), and Choice Outstanding Academic Book for Making Mice (2004).