Josh Nall

Curator of Modern Sciences, Whipple Museum of the History of Science


Joshua Nall joined the Whipple Museum in 2013, having previously completed his MPhil and PhD in Cambridge HPS. His research focuses on mass media and material culture of the physical sciences after 1800. He has curated a variety of exhibitions and displays, including on globes, science and industry in Cambridge, and most recently, the most curious and controversial objects lurking in the Whipple Museum's stores.

In 2017 he is the lead curator on the Whipple Museum's special exhibition Astronomy and Empire, which will critically address the practices and uses of the astronomical and navigational sciences in the British Empire from Cook's voyages in the late 18th century through to its breakup in the 1950s.

Fakes in the Whipple Museum Collection

by | 04.09.20

Are there fakes scientific instruments hiding in our collections, and if so, how do we identify them? Dr Joshua Nall, Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, introduces a research collaboration between the Whipple Museum  and James Hyslop, Head of Department, Science & Natural History, Christie’s, London. The Whipple team included Nall, Professor Liba… Read full article

Crate expectations: curating as a collaborative endeavour

by | 18.01.18

There were crates. That’s all I knew at first. Great big boxes full of scientific instruments sent back from an eclipse expedition sometime in the last century, and never re-opened. As soon as a colleague told me about them, I’d turned over in my mind the possibility of using them as the centrepiece for an exhibition here in the Whipple… Read full article