A History of Biophysics in Contemporary China / SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology (PDF)

Christine Yi Lai Luk holds a doctorate in the human and social dimensions of science and technology from Arizona State University (ASU). She is interested in exploring the intersection between the scientific establishment and cultural knowledge forms in non-Western settings. Her pursuit of non-Western scientific culture was supported by the History of Science Society (HSS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the D. Kim Foundation for the History of Science and Technology in East Asia, and the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund Council. This book stems from her doctoral dissertation, entitled "Biophysics, Rockets, and the State: the Making of a Scientific Discipline in Twentieth-Century China." Before coming to the United States, Dr. Luk completed her M.Phil at the City University of Hong Kong where she taught a variety of courses ranging from globalization and development, social change and development in East and Southeast Asia. She is currently teaching at Arizona State University, where she has developed and co-taught several graduate and undergraduate courses in science and technology policy. Her work has appeared in Research Yearbook of Philosophy of Technology in China and Women in Engineering and Technology Research. She is currently working on a second research project investigating the role of Chinese medicine in sustaining the Chinese community among Sino-Burmese families in post-Independence Burma/Myanmar. Her research endeavors are centered around the re-examination of historical relationships and the re-imagination of cultural patterns through the prism of biomedical science in East and Southeast Asia.

“This study builds on and extends a healthy body of literature in the history of science that considers the development of scientific disciplines in terms of social, political, and economic factors. … as the first study of its kind, Luk’s book represents an important step in enriching our understanding of the history of this scientific discipline outside the conventional paradigm of the modern West.” (Howard Chiang, Metascience, Vol. 25, 2016)