On the evening of Wednesday, September 23, we are welcoming Princeton University’s Fara Dabhoiwala to our event space in downtown Washington, DC, to present “Black Genius: Race, Science, and the Extraordinary Portrait of Francis Williams.” Williams was a formerly enslaved, 18th-century Jamaican polymath, and Dabhoiwala has found fascinating clues to his talent for Newtonian physics in a portrait of him owned by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The lecture is based on research Dabhoiwala is conducting for a biography of Williams and is part of our Lyne Starling Trimble lecture series. To join us in person, register today!

The Seventh AIP Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences will take place in Toronto, Canada, June 21–25, 2027. The conference is an excellent opportunity for master’s and PhD students, postdocs, early-stage faculty, and young independent scholars to share their work in our field and help foster a tightly knit global research community. Supplementary travel funding will be available. The call for papers will remain open until November 15, 2026. For submission instructions and further details, please visit the AIP website.

• Sarah Marie Bruno, interviewed Feb. 6, 2026 by Dorothy Tang
• Donna Dean, interviewed May 23, 2026 by Anna Doel
• Edwin Krupp, interviewed June 2, 2026 by David DeVorkin (second session)
• Shirley Malcom, interviewed May 27, 2026 by Anna Doel
• Farrah Simpson, interviewed Feb. 4, 2026 by Dorothy Tang
• Judith Weis, interviewed May 12, 2026 by Anna Doel
• Joe Wolfe, interviewed June 6, 2026 by Noel Hanna

Research guides, curated by NBLA staff, provide starting points for exploring our collections and navigating our online resources. In addition to our existing catalog , we now offer these topics:

• Chinese scientists and science
• Women in the physical sciences