Eric Scerri is originally from Malta. He obtained all his degrees in the UK.
His bachelors and masters degrees were in chemistry from the universities of London and Southampton. After further postgraduate work in theoretical chemistry at the University of Cambridge he obtained a PhD in the history and philosophy of science from King’s College, London. He went to the US as a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, twenty years ago, and has lived in the US ever since. For the past 21 years he has been teaching chemistry and philosophy of science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Scerri is one of the founders of the new field of the phil…
Eric Scerri is originally from Malta. He obtained all his degrees in the UK.
His bachelors and masters degrees were in chemistry from the universities of London and Southampton. After further postgraduate work in theoretical chemistry at the University of Cambridge he obtained a PhD in the history and philosophy of science from King’s College, London. He went to the US as a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, twenty years ago, and has lived in the US ever since. For the past 21 years he has been teaching chemistry and philosophy of science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Scerri is one of the founders of the new field of the philosophy of chemistry as well as the founder and editor of the journal Foundations of Chemistry, now in its eighteenth year of publication.
His work in the philosophy of science has focused on the question of reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics, emergence, chemical laws and chemical explanations. Among other topics he examines the nature of the orbital approximation as used in chemistry and atomic physics.
He is the author of The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance that several reviewers have called “the definitive book on the periodic table” as well as a Very Short Introduction to the Periodic Table, A Tale of Seven Elements, and most recently A Tale of Seven Scientists and A New Philosophy of Science, all for Oxford University Press and is also the author of 5 further books. Eric Scerri is has authored over 150 journal articles in chemistry, chemical education and history and philosophy of science.
In addition he regularly writes for popular science magazines such as Scientific American, American Scientist, New Scientist, Focus and appears on radio and TV as well as giving public lectures all round the world. For example, he recently appeared in the PBS three-part series called The Mystery of Matter. His books have been very favorably reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Times Higher Education, Times Literary Supplement and Nature magazine among other newspapers and journals. They have also been translated into fifteen foreign languages with several other translations in the making.
website: http://www.ericscerri.com. His most recent book is a co-edited book collection, E. Scerri, E. Ghibaudi, What is an Element? Oxford University Press, NY, 2020.
