The International Academy of the History of Science has awarded its 2025 Alexandre Koyré Medal—the academy’s premier honor—to Roderick Weir Home, a 1967 graduate of Indiana Bloomington who earned his Ph.D. in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine within the College of Arts and Sciences. The medal recognizes a lifetime of distinguished achievement in the history of science and is granted once every other year to leading scholars in the field.
“We are delighted about Dr. Home’s receiving this honor,” said Jutta Schickore, the department’s chairperson. “One of the early graduates of our program, Dr. Home is renowned for his scholarship on Isaac Newton and 18th-century physics and joins a distinguished cohort of historians of science whose work has shaped the field.”
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Home earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics at the University of Melbourne before coming to Indiana University for doctoral study. After completing his Ph.D. at IU Bloomington, he returned to Melbourne and built one of the world’s leading academic programs in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Melbourne. He served as the university’s foundation professor of history and philosophy of science beginning in 1975 and is now a professor emeritus, following his retirement in 2003.
A specialist in early modern physical science, the legacy of Isaac Newton and, more recently, on the history of science in Australia, Home is the author or editor of 17 books and more than 150 articles and chapters. His works include Aepinus’s Essay on the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism (Princeton University Press, 1979) and the multi-volume Regardfully Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller (Peter Lang, 1998–2006). He is also a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a member of the Order of Australia.
“Our department has long been a center for Newtonian scholarship, beginning in the 1960s with the appointment of Richard (Sam) Westfall to the faculty, a legacy that continues to this day,” Schickore said. “Dr. Home’s recognition is a testament not only to his remarkable career but also to the enduring impact of our academic community. We extend our warmest congratulations to Dr. Home on this well-deserved honor.”