Jenny Bangham

Jenny Bangham is a historian of twentieth-century science and technology, affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin as a Research Fellow. Her work focuses on the intersection of medical research, knowledge production, and sociopolitical contexts, particularly in human genetics and blood group studies.

• Education: Doctorate in biology (University College London), PhD in history of science (University of Cambridge, 2014, funded by Wellcome Trust).

Her research examines how human genetics was shaped by blood group research, public health bureaucracies, colonial and Cold War politics, and evolving racial discourses. She investigates the epistemic roles of administrative tools (e.g., nomenclatures) and the politics of visibility in scientific practices.

Scientific awards include the Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize (2014) and the Prix M.-A. Pictet. She co-edited a 13-paper special issue on administrative tools in human genetics and organized workshops like ‘(In)visible Labour: Knowledge production in the human sciences’ (essays to be published as MPIWG preprints).

• Key Collaborations: Affiliated scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.
• Research Themes: Blood group standardization, postwar human genetics, race science, and material culture of scientific inscriptions.