Dr Sarah Dry

Associate Member

Faculty of History/Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

sarah.dry@History.ox.ac.uk

I am an historian of science and writer. I write for a general readership about topics in the history of science which I hope can deepen contemporary debates about important subjects, most recently and especially, climate change.

My research has been supported by a Public Scholar grant from the US National Endowment for the Humanities, the Leverhulme Trust, the UK Economic and Social Science Research Council and a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Until 2024 I was a research associate on Making Climate History project at the University of Cambridge. I have also served as a facilitator for the Oxford Scenario Planning Programme. I am currently a trustee of The Oxford Trust. From 2016-2021, I was a trustee of the Science Museum Group where I chaired the Collections and Research Sub-committee.

Research Interests

I am currently working on a book about the history of systems thinking for global problems, focussed on the life of Dana Meadows, author of The Limits to Growth.

I also research the history of climate science, with a particular focus on the history of the creation of global temperature indices in the 20th century.

I have previously written books on the history of Isaac Newton's manuscripts, global health policy and the life of Marie Curie.

You can follow me here

Featured Publication

Waters of the World The Story of the Scientists Who Unraveled the Mysteries of Our Oceans, Atmosphere, and Ice Sheets and Made the Planet Whole (University of Chicago Press, Nov 2019)

The compelling and adventurous stories of seven pioneering scientists who were at the forefront of what we now call climate science.
From the glaciers of the Alps to the towering cumulonimbus clouds of the Caribbean and the unexpectedly chaotic flows of the North Atlantic, Waters of the World is a tour through 150 years of the history of a significant but underappreciated idea: that the Earth has a global climate system made up of interconnected parts, constantly changing on all scales of both time and space.

In the Media

Innovation and Its Unexpected Effects: Why a Historical Perspective Matters in the Climate Crisis

TORCH YouTube channel

5 November 2021

Research Centres

Oxford Centre for History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

Period Modern

Region Europe North America

Specialism Environmental History History of Science History of Science, Medicine & Technology