Frederick R. Davis

 Associate Professor of History

I teach the history of science and medicine and environmental history. My research examines the history of environmental sciences with links to environmental history. My second book, Pesticides and Toxicology: A Century of Environmental Health, is based on my dissertation. This study reveals how the discipline of toxicology emerged in response to the development of chemical insecticides. Pesticides and Toxicology recently received a major grant from the National Institutes of Health (National Library of Medicine), and I will spend the academic year 2009-10 completing the research for this book.

My first book was published in 2007: The Man who Saved Sea Turtles: Archie Carr and the Origins of Conservation Biology (Oxford University Press, 2007) . Through Archie Carr’s remarkable career (1937-87), I explored the important developments in biology and conservation including the rise of conservation biology as an independent discipline. The National Science Foundation funded my research for The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles. I have had the opportunity to give numerous lectures about Archie Carr and his studies of the ecology and conservation of sea turtles over the past year.

Since my arrival at FSU in 2002, I have been active in promoting the history and philosophy of science (Associate Director of the HPS Program since 2003). The HPS Program currently awards master’s degrees and also offers an undergraduate minor. Along with colleagues from the Biological Sciences and Philosophy, I am collaborating on a three-year collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation, which seeks to strengthen interdisciplinary graduate education in biology and the history and philosophy of science.

I teach a range of graduate and undergraduate courses on environmental history and the history of science and medicine. I was fortunate to receive a University Graduate Teaching Award in 2006-07.

Teaching Schedule (2008 - 2010)

Fall 2008
Science and Constructivism (Graduate Seminar)
History of Environmental Activism (Senior Seminar)

Spring 2009
North American Environmental History
History of Life Sciences

Fall 2009
On Research Leave

Spring 2010
On Research Leave

Recent Courses:

Graduate:
Historiography and Science
History of the Life Sciences (1750 to the present)
Science and Social Constructivism (with Michael Ruse, Philosophy)
North American Environmental History
Historical Methods

Combined Undergraduate and Graduate:
North American Environmental History
Florida Environmental History
Disease, Race, and Environment
History of Environmental Science and Environmentalism
History of Environmental Activism