History professor Mahoney GS '67 dies after 46 years at University

Michael Mahoney GS ’67, a dedicated professor of the history of science who spent 40 years at the University, died Wednesday, July 23, at the University Medical Center at Princeton. Mahoney was unable to recover after suffering cardiac arrest during a July 18 swim in Dillon Pool. He was 69.

For several years, Mahoney directed the University’s Program in Science in Human Affairs and the Program in History of Science. He became one of the first Ph.D.s in the latter during his early years at the University and was a member of that program at the time of his death.

History department chairman William Jordan GS ’73, an old friend of Mahoney who has known him since Mahoney was a “young professor” in the history department and Jordan was a graduate student, recalled with veneration “the breadth of his knowledge in medieval, early modern and modern science.”

“He was someone who could (and did) begin a seminar on the origins of modern science by examining Galileo’s mechanics in depth, working out the math on the black board, and end with Greek or Arabic etymologies of scientific concepts,” Catherine Abou-Nemeh GS, one of Mahoney’s advisees, said in an e-mail.

“At the same time, his talent as a historian was that he knew how to tell a good story,” she added. “In a word, his knowledge and teaching were interdisciplinary while his method of communicating that knowledge was very effective and natural.”

As a professor, Mahoney taught courses like HIS 291: The Origins of Modern Science, 1500 to 1700; HIS 290: The Scientific World View of Antiquity and the Middle Ages; FRS 159: Creating the Computer: From ENIAC to the Internet; and Teachers as Scholars seminar Technology and the Human Experience.

“I loved attending his Scientific Revolution lecture courses (History 291) because he so clearly enjoyed giving them,” Melinda Baldwin GS said, recalling the saying Mahoney used to introduce the class: “The Scientific Revolution is not about people getting smarter.”

“Whenever I think about giving my own Sci Rev course someday, I think of that phrase, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be quoting Prof. Mahoney on the first day of the semester every time I teach a history of science class,” she added.

Sam Zeitlin ’08 said in an e-mail that he entered the history of science program “because of how much I loved HIS 291.”

Within the history department, “he was a gyroscope for his colleagues, who kept us all, individually and collectively, on a reasonably balanced and steady course,” history professor Sean Wilentz said in an e-mail.

“He truly brightened any room he entered — a man of extraordinary curiosity about the present as well as the past, who would (politely) join in any conversation and immediately richen it, with the questions that he asked as well as the answers he had to offer,” Wilentz added.

Jordan said that when he became chairman of the history department this past year, Mahoney “said that he would be here to talk things through whenever I needed to.”

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“His honesty and forthrightness will always be an inspiration to me,” Jordan added.

“His lucid, elegantly constructed lectures on the Scientific Revolution gave me a model of great teaching that I have tried to imitate ever since,” said Anthony Grafton, a professor in the history department and the Program in History of Science who taught some of Mahoney’s precepts.

Mahoney focused his research and teaching on both the history of the mathematical sciences from antiquity to 1700 and recent developments in computer science and information technology, with a particular interest in human interactions with, and dependence on, technology. His works include “The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665” — a set of monographs about Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Barrow — as well as numerous public lectures and articles about computing and software engineering.

Though he specialized in the history of science in Europe and America, he also “was a pioneer” in instructing Chinese students who come to the United States to study the history of astronomy and mathematics, Benjamin Elman, a professor in the departments of history and East Asian studies, said in an e-mail.

“He was tireless in his support of these foreign students,” Elman added.

Staff and students also recalled his great openness and generosity.

Dan Bouk GS, a student in the Program in History of Science, said in an e-mail that Mahoney “always smiled and greeted his visitor warmly” when students stopped by his office to talk. Bouk added that he and Mahoney “would talk about history and science together for a long time; there was no rush. He enjoyed when his students challenged him, and I learned much from our back and forth.”

History professor Molly Greene GS ’89, who used to bring her young children to the office with her, said Mahoney “would pass by, survey the scene of my kids spread out, coloring and so forth, and he would come back with a big cookie for each of them.”

When history professor Gyan Prakash started his research on science in colonial India, Mahoney “very patiently helped me along with suggestions on what to read.”

“He would lend me his books, mark out which chapters to read, and then give me a quick overview. When I began to write my chapters, he would read them promptly, and offer really constructive comments,” Prakash said. “He did all this without ever making me feel small.”

“He was totally non-hierarchical. He was already a full professor, and I was an assistant professor, but he treated me as an equal,” he added.

Before coming to the University, the New York native graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and studied for two years as a German Foreign Exchange Service Fellow at the University of Munich. Upon arriving at Princeton in 1962, Mahoney served as an instructor while working on his dissertation in history and in the history of science and was appointed an assistant professor after earning his Ph.D. in 1967.

From 1979 through the late 1980s, Mahoney himself took courses in the University’s engineering school and worked, under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, with three other faculty members to develop engineering programs that would appeal to liberal arts students.

From 1984 to 1985, he served as director of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for Secondary School Teachers focused on “Technology and the Human Experience,” drawing 20 faculty members from liberal arts schools to Princeton’s campus for the summer to learn how to integrate engineering materials into their curriculums. He also traveled around the country teaching classes and workshops and visiting sites for program evaluations as a member and board chairman of the National Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Sciences.

Mahoney also took on leadership positions in the History of Science Society, the Society for the History of Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery, and served as a chairman on an advisory panel on computer software and intellectual property for the U.S. Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment from 1990 to 1991.

In addition, Mahoney taught local school teachers in the Teachers as Scholars Program as well as alumni education programs and served as a dissertation adviser for many Ph.D. candidates.

Mahoney played an active role in his community as a member, and later president, of the Princeton Regional Schools Board of Education in the 1980s. As a swimmer, runner and cyclist, he was involved in local youth athletics programs like the Princeton Soccer Association and the Princeton Area Swimming and Diving Association, serving as not only a starter at swim meets but also incorporating his dedication to technology into the sports arena by developing computer programs to help with scoring. Mahoney also served as a faculty adviser to the University’s swim teams.

Along with his dedication to his job and the community, Mahoney struck others with his devotion to his family, a topic Okezie Aguwa ’07 said Mahoney often brought up in the course of discussing his thesis with him.

“As the mother of two children born in Princeton during my graduate career, I also appreciated the model he set of a shockingly clever scholar who was smart enough to revel in the love of his wife, children and grandchildren,” Jane Murphy GS ’06 said in an e-mail.

“He would get a real twinkle in his eye when he talked about his wife, children, and grandchildren,” Tania Munz GS ’07 said in an e-mail. “He didn’t shield that aspect of his life from his graduate students, and I always admired and appreciated that about him.”

Mahoney is survived by his wife of 48 years, Jean, who retired in 2000 after working in the University’s Office of Research and Project Administration and holding other staff positions for 25 years. His wife, who currently resides in Princeton, said she preferred not to comment at this time.

Mahoney is also survived by his son, Colin, his daughter, Bridget, and his grandchildren Arthur, Elliot, Camilla and Francesca. Other survivors include his mother, Dorothy Mahoney, an aunt, Jo Turner, his brothers, Daniel, Timothy and Patrick, and many nieces and nephews.