In general: History of science and technology.
More specifically: The science-technology relationship, historiography of technological change, cultural dependence on technological change, artistic and architectural symbols as representations on the views of science and technology in culture and the cityscape, the cultural history of the Nobel Prize, museology of science museums, science communication.
Current: A book MS and a number of articles on various aspects of the work of the Swedish Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén (Nobel Prize in Physics 1970).
Born in 1948
1977 M.Sc.Eng. (Physics) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
1984 Ph.D. in History of Science and Ideas from Uppsala University
1986-1987 Visiting Scholar in the Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley
1989 Professor of History of Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
1989 established and became Chairman of the Department for History of Science and Technology, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
1991-1999 Advisory Committee for the history project at the European Space Agency (ESA), Paris
1992 Visiting Professor in the Department for History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
1992 member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences
1994 member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science
1992-2008 member of the Kuratorium and the Wissenschaftlichen Beirats of the Deutsches Museum, München.
1995–96, Overseas Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge
1996-2004 member of the Corporation Visiting Committee for the Humanities at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1998-2009 founding Director of the Nobel Museum
2002 member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
2003 Visiting Professor in the STS Program at MIT
2008–2009 member of the International Advisory Board of the Medical Museion in Copenhagen
2009-2012 President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
2010–2018 Marshal of the Realm (riksmarskalk) to the Swedish Royal Court
2011 foreign member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology
2013 foreign member of the American Philosophical Society
2019 honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts
Present: Chancellor of the Royal Orders of Knighthood, the Swedish Royal Court
Books
“Technology on Trial: The Introduction of Steam Power Technology into Sweden, 1715–1736”, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1984.
“Center on the Periphery: Historical Aspects of 20th-Century Swedish Physics” Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications, 1993.
“Museums of Modern Science, Nobel Symposium 112 (Archives of the Nobel Museum, 1),” Science History Pubns, 2000.
“Changes in the Technological Landscape: Essays in the History of Science and Technology”, Sagamore Beach:Mass.: Science History Publications, 2011.
Co-edited books
“Research and Museums: Proceedings of An International Symposium in Stockholm 22–25 May 2007”, Nationalmuseum, 2007. Co-edited with Görel Cavalli-Björkman.
“Aurora Torealis: Studies in the History of Science and Ideas in Honor of Tore Frängsmyr,” co-edit. With Marco Beretta, Karl Grandin, Science History Publications/USA, 2008.
Letterstedt Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1985.
Leonardo da Vinci Medal for lifetime achievement from the Society for the History of Technology, 2010.
Honorary doctorate from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 2011, and honorary doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), 2020.
The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan for “promoting friendly relations between Japan and Sweden, and facilitating exchange in academic fields of science and technology”, 2013.
