Melinda Baldwin

Melinda Baldwin is an expert on the history of scientific publishing, funding and peer review. Baldwin holds the AIP Endowed Professorship in History of Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of “Making "Nature": The History of a Scientific Journal” (U. Chicago Press, 2015), which traces the development of Nature, today arguably the world’s most prestigious scientific journal. Her current research focuses on the development of peer review in the sciences, and she has been interviewed about peer review by outlets including The Atlantic, Slate and The Scholarly Kitchen. She has also been featured on podcasts from the BBC, Austrian National Radio, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and NPR.

Baldwin holds a B.S. from Davidson College, an M.Phil. from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. She is a former senior editor at Physics Today and has held positions at York University, Harvard University and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.