Dana Simmons Assistant Professor of History Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2004 Fields of Interest: Modern France; Modern Europe; science and technology (951) 827-5401

Dana Simmons graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1995 with a degree in Architecture and Visual Arts.  She veered gradually from things to books during a lovely year in Paris, in which she did nothing of much consequence.  She then moved on to an M.A. in Art History and a PhD in History at the University of Chicago.  Her PhD thesis won recognition as the best dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago in 2004.  Her awards include a Jacob A. Javits Fellowship, a Visiting Fellowship at the Institut d' Etudes Politiques de Paris, a Graham Architectural Foundation Trustees Award, and a William Rainey Harper Fellowship.  She is currently revising a book manuscript for publication.  Minimal Frenchman: Science and Standards of Living, 1840-1960, traces the rise of a modern project to prescribe the parameters of life.  It covers the science of nutrition, wartime rationing, minimum wages and modernist architecture.  Simmons is thankful to work in the discipline of history where she can play with the intersections between material culture, science, and politics, between things and words.  Last year she was a scholar in residence at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

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