Matthew Eisler

Matthew Eisler 

Research Fellow

  • Phone: 215.873.8231
  • Fax: 215.629.5231

Matthew N. Eisler's general research interests lie in the history of the social relations of science and engineering and their material effects on natural and built spaces, especially after 1945. He is particularly interested in the political economy of knowledge-making in a range of institutional contexts in the academy, government, and industry, especially in enterprises relating to sustainable energy storage and conversion. He has explored the relationship between linear ideology/project management, utopian/futurist discourse, patronage, and the construction of expert authority in case studies of fuel cell research and development and the U.S. Department of Energy’s nanoscale science, engineering, and technology (NSET) programs. Eisler’s research at the Chemical Heritage Foundation explores these themes in an analysis of the history of efforts by the federal government to foster NSET in support of energy storage and power source systems, including advanced batteries, photovoltaic systems, fuel cells, and assorted hydrogen technologies.

Eisler obtained a doctorate in history at the University of Alberta in 2008. He was the 2008-2009 Harris Steel Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of history at the University of Western Ontario and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 2009 to 2011.

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