Kate MacCord | Marine Biological Laboratory

Program Administrator and McDonnell Foundation Fellow

Education:
Arizona State University, PhD History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge, MPhil Human Evolutionary Studies
University of Pittsburgh, BPhil Anthropology

Research Statement:

As part of her dissertation research, Dr. Kate MacCord spent a year with the evolutionary phenomics laboratory of Jukka Jernvall at the University of Helsinki studying the development and evolution of teeth. This laboratory experience transformed her understanding of the scientific study of development and evolution, both currently and in the past. Kate’s research, which she conducts as the McDonnell Foundation Fellow, focuses on the history and philosophy of morphogenesis–how embryos, tissues, and organs gain their characteristic forms. Kate doesn’t just work on tooth morphogenesis, but finds the study of how forms arise across all embryos fascinating.

In addition to being the McDonnell Foundation Fellow, Kate is also the Program Administrator for the James S. McDonnell Foundation-funded initiative at the MBL. This initiative seeks to bring researchers from history and philosophy of science (HPS) together with scientists in order to transform discovery. In order to facilitate this, the initiative funds workshops, working groups, and short-term fellowships.

Selected Publications:

MacCord, Kate and Maienschein, Jane. (April 2018) “Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory,” In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester. DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0027989.

MacCord, Kate. “Tracking Embryos Through Time: The Embryology Course at the MBL,” In From the Beach to the Bench: Why Marine Biological Studies? Eds. Jane Maienschein, Karl Matlin, Rachel Ankeny. In press.

MacCord, Kate, Jane Maienschein. “The Historiography of Embryology and Developmental Biology,” In The Historiography of Biology Eds. Michael Dietrich, Mark Borrello, Oren Harman. 2018. Springer Press.

Michael Dietrich, Mark Borrello, Oren Harman. Springer. In press.

Steinert, Beatrice, Kate MacCord. “Visualizing the Cell: Pictorial Styles and their Epistemic Goals in General Cytology,”In Visions of Cell Biology: Reflections on Cowdry’s Cytology Eds. Karl Matlin, Jane Maienschein, Manfred Laubichler. 2018. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

MacCord, Kate, Jane Maienschein. “Cells, Development, and Evolution: Teeth at the Intersection of Fields,” In The Darwinian Tradition in Context: Research Programs in Twentieth-Century Evolutionary Biology Ed. Richard Delisle. 2017. Springer Press.

Maienschein, Jane, Kate MacCord. “Changing Conceptions of Human Nature,” In Frankenstein Eds. Jason Robert, Ed Finn, David Guston. 2017. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

MacCord, Kate, Guido Caniglia, Jacqueline E. Moustakas‐Verho, and Ann C. Burke. “The Dawn of Chelonian Research: Turtles between Comparative Anatomy and Embryology in the 19th Century.” Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 324, no. 3 (2015): 169-180. DOI: 10.1002/jez.b.22587

MacCord, Kate, “Endothelium”. Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2014-01-28). ISSN: 1940-5030 https://hdl.handle.net/10776/7517.

MacCord, Kate, “Germ Layers”. Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2013-09-17). ISSN: 1940-5030 https://hdl.handle.net/10776/6273.

MacCord, Kate, “Epithelium”. Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2012-10-17). ISSN: 1940-5030 https://hdl.handle.net/10776/3946.

MacCord, Kate, “Mesenchyme”. Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2012-09-14). ISSN: 1940-5030 https://hdl.handle.net/10776/3941.