Center for Science and Society Welcomes Four Postdoctoral Researchers

The Center for Science and Society at Columbia University welcomes two new postdoctoral research scholars in the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program, Federica Coppola and Noam Zerubavel.

Coppola is a criminal lawyer specializing in neurolaw. She will investigate how findings from social and affective neuroscience about the role of emotions in prosocial behavior might be used to inform criminal justice approaches and correctional interventions, with special focus on offenders with socioaffective impairments.

Zerubavel is a social and neural scientist interested in understanding the building blocks of human relationships and group life. He will investigate the organizing sociological principles, psychological processes, and neural mechanisms that engender social ties and shape their network structure.

The Center also welcomed two new postdoctoral lecturers in History in the Making & Knowing Project, Sophie Pitman and Tillmann Taape.

Pitman is a historian specializing in early modern material culture. Her current research projects explore early modern dyes and color, and early modern tailoring practices and clothing during the English Civil War and Interregnum.

Taape is a historian of science working on craft knowledge, medicine, and the occult in the early modern period. Taape’s research interests include the history of knowledge, the human body, and print culture.

The Center for Science and Society brings together scholars and practitioners in the social and natural sciences, humanities, law, medicine, and the arts to engage in interdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach. The Center works across traditional boundaries of knowledge and aims to enhance public understanding of science in relation to pressing social concerns.

For more news from the Center, please see its recent newsletter.