My graduate training was as a historian of science (Harvard, PhD, 1982), but I have had strong interests in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies since my days as an undergraduate (BA, Anthropology of the Middle East, 1972; MA, Near Eastern Studies, 1973; both at the University Michigan). After a number of post-docs and short-term teaching positions, I was a professor in the Department of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma from 1990–2006, at which time I moved to the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill where I held a Canada Research Chair from 2006–2020. At Oklahoma, my main teaching was in general history of science and science in the Islamic world; at McGill, I focused more on science in premodern Islam and the interactions of science and religion. This has run parallel to my increasing research interest in broader questions of Islamic intellectual history. I retired from McGill in September 2020; I currently reside in Chicago, Illinois (USA), where I continue my research on the history of astronomy and science in Islam.

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