Laura J. Snyder

Laura J. Snyder (born 1964) is an American historian, philosopher, and writer. She is a Fulbright Scholar, a professor at St. John’s University, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She writes narrative-driven non-fiction books about the way that science is intertwined with the rest of culture. Snyder writes for The Wall Street Journal and lives in New York City.

Snyder was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1987, she received BA degrees from Brandeis University in philosophy and in the history of western thought. She received her PhD in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1996. At Johns Hopkins she also completed a certificate program in the History and Philosophy of Science.

Snyder became a Phi Beta Kappa member in 1987, received a Mellon Fellowship in 1997–98, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1998–99, and received a fellowship from the American Philosophical Society in 2004–05. She was elected a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, in 1999. She joined the faculty of St. John’s University in New York City in 1996 and was promoted to full professor in 2012.

Snyder has published numerous articles in scholarly journals including Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, and Perspectives on Science and in several edited volumes on the history and philosophy of science. Her first book, Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2006.

Snyder was a steering committee member of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) from 2003 to 2012 and its president in 2009 and 2010. She was a founding co-editor of the Society’s journal HOPOS.

Snyder’s first piece for a popular audience was “Sherlock Holmes, Scientific Detective,” an article that appeared in the September 2004 issue of Endeavour (U.K).

Snyder’s The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends who Transformed Science and Changed the World, an interleaved biography of Charles Babbage, John F.W. Herschel, William Whewell, and Richard Jones, was reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist, and numerous other popular media outlets and science magazines.

The Philosophical Breakfast Club was named an “Outstanding Title” by the American Library Association, a “Notable Book” by Scientific American, an “Official Selection” of the TED Book Club, and winner of the 2011 Royal Institution of Australia’s Poll for Favorite Science Book. It has been translated into Italian, and a Chinese translation is forthcoming.

Snyder’s most recent book, Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing describes how artists and scientists in Holland in the 1600s changed the way we see the world. Snyder tells this story through the lens of the lives of two men who were born the same week in the small town of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. It is published by W. W. Norton in North American and in the U.K. and Commonwealth by Head of Zeus.

Snyder was a speaker at TED Global in 2012 and gave the 2011 Dibner Library Lecture at the Smithsonian Institution. She has appeared on radio shows and podcasts in the US, Canada, and U.K. She contributes book reviews and essays to the Wall Street Journal.

• Snyder, Laura J. (2015). Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393077469. 
• Snyder, Laura J. (2011). The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends who Transformed Science and Changed the World. Broadway Books. ISBN 9780767930482. 
• Snyder, Laura J. (2006). Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226767338. 
• Snyder, Laura J. (May 4, 2015). "One to One - Laura J. Snyder - CUNY TV". One to One (Interview). Interview with Sheryl McCarthy. 
• Snyder, Laura J. (March 16, 2015). "The Painter and the Philosopher Who Taught Us How to See". The Leonard Lopate Show (Interview). Interview with Leonard Lopate. 
• Snyder, Laura J. (February 21, 2014). "The Philosophical Breakfast Club #253". Science for the People (Interview). Interview with Desiree Schell. 
• TED Global 2012, Edinburgh, June, 2012.
• Dibner Library Lecture, Smithsonian Institution, December 6, 2011.