Greg Morgan awarded the Derek Price/Rod Webster Prize

Paper examines history of the three-dimensional structure of viruses

Greg Morgan, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stevens Institute of Technology, was recently awarded the Derek Price/Rod Webster Prize for best paper of 2009 in History of Science by the History of Science Society.

Morgan, who teaches in the College of Arts and Letters at Stevens, was co-author of the paper, "After the Double Helix: Rosalind Franklin's Research on Tobacco mosaic virus." Morgan wrote the paper with Angela N. H. Creager, a Professor of Literature at Princeton University.

The Derek Price/Rod Webster has been awarded annually since 1979 and recognizes the best work in Isis, an official journal of the History of Science Society.

The paper documents "Rosalind Franklin's speculative theorizing and collaborative scientific work, countering the image of the cautious and overly sensitive 'Rosy' of James Watson's memoir and fleshing out her character as a scientist," the awards committee wrote. "Their attention to the personal, material, and institutional aspects of this work succeeds in offering a compelling new interpretation of scientific cooperation and competition in the emerging international community of molecular biology."