How can humans understand the natural world? What is really there? How does it move? What are matter, energy, space, time, and light? What is life and how does it evolve? At St. John’s, students study physics, biology, and chemistry through books and experiments that help them face these difficult, basic questions and to see how they might be answered. The program ranges widely to explore quantum physics, relativity, and contemporary molecular biology.
Archimedes “On the Equilibrium of Planes,” “On Floating Bodies”
Aristotle Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachaen Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals
Amedeo Avogadro "Essay on a Manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies”
Claude Berthollet “Excerpt from Essai de Statique Chimique”
Joseph Black “Extracts from Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry”
Stanislao Cannizzaro “Letter to Professor S. De Luca”
John Dalton “Extracts from A New System of Chemical Philosophy”
Hans Driesch “The Science and Philosophy of the Organism”
Euclid Elements
Daniel Fahrenheit “The Fahrenheit Scale”
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac “On the Expansion of Gases by Heat,” “Memoir on the Combination of Gaseous Substances with Each Other”
William Harvey Motion of the Heart and Blood
Antoine Lavoisier Elements of Chemistry
Lucretius On the Nature of Things
Edme Mariotte Essays
Dmitri Mendeleev “The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements”
Nicomachus Arithmetic
Blaise Pascal Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids
J.L. Proust “Excerpt from Sur Les Oxidations Metalliques”
Ptolemy Almagest
Hans Spemann “The Organizer-Effect in Embryonic Development” (Nobel Lecture 1935), “Embryonic Development and Induction”
J. J. Thomson “Extracts from System of Chemistry”
Rudolf Virchow “Cellular Pathology Lectures”
Apollonius Conics
Aristotle De Anima, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Categories
Francis Bacon Novum Organum
Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres
René Descartes Geometry, Discourse on Method
Johannes Kepler Astronomia Nova
Blaise Pascal Generation of Conic Sections
Ptolemy Almagest
François Viète Introduction to the Analytical Art
André-Marie Ampère Essays
Daniel Bernoulli “On the Vibrating String”
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb “Excerpts from Coulomb’s Mémoires sur l’électricité et le magnétisme”
Richard Dedekind Essay on the Theory of Numbers
René Descartes Meditations, Rules for the Direction of the Mind
Leonhard Euler “Remarks on the Preceding Papers by Mr. Bernoulli”
Michael Faraday “Experimental Researches in Electricity”
Benjamin Franklin “Excerpt from several letters to Peter Collinson on the nature of electricity”
Galileo Galilei Two New Sciences
William Gilbert “De Magnete”
David Hume Treatise on Human Nature
Christiaan Huygens Treatise on Light, On the Movement of Bodies by Impact
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Monadology, Discourse on Metaphysics, Principles of Nature and Grace, Essays
James Clerk Maxwell “On Faraday’s Lines of Force.” “On Physical Lines of Force,” “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field”
Isaac Newton Principia Mathematica
Jean-Antoine Nollet “Observations on Several New Electrical Phenomena”
Hans Christian Ørsted “Experiments concerning the efficacy of electric conflict on the magnetic needle”
Brook Taylor “On the motion of the stretched string”
Alessandro Volta “On the Electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds”
Thomas Young “On the Nature of Light and Colors”
Niels Bohr “On the Spectrum of Hydrogen”
Theodor Boveri Essays
Louisde Broglie “Matter Waves”
Charles Darwin Origin of Species
Albert Einstein “Relativity,” “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” “On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,” “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity,” “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content?”
Michael Faraday “On the Absolute Quantity of Electricity Associated with the Particles or Atoms of Matter”
François Jacob & Jacques Monod Essays
George Beadle & Edward Tatum Essays
G. H. Hardy “Mendelian Proportions in a Mixed Population”
Georg Hegel Phenomenology of Mind
Werner Karl Heisenberg “Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Particle Picture”
Edmund Husserl The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
James Watson & Francis Crick Essays
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck “Zoological Philosophy”
Nikolai Lobachevsky Theory of Parallels
Gregor Mendel “Experiments with Plant Hybridization”
Robert Andrews Millikan “The Electron”
Hermann Minkowski “Space and Time”
Thomas Morgan “Evolution and Genetics,” “The Chromosomes and Mendel's Two Laws,” “The Linkage Groups and the Chromosomes,” “Sex-Linked Inheritance,” “Crossing-Over”
Max Planck “The Quantum Hypothesis”
Ernest Rutherford “The Scattering of α & β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom”
Erwin Schrödinger “Four Lectures of Wave Mechanics—First Lecture”
Joel Sussman Essays
Walter Sutton Essays
J. J. Thomson “Cathode Rays”
Albert Einstein Essays
Richard Feynman QED
Georg Hegel Philosophy of Nature
Konrad Lorenz Studies in Animal and Human Behavior
Bertrand Russell An Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
Computation
Computing Technology and Human Society
Neuroscience Mathematics and Natural Science
The information presented is for illustration purposes only and may not reflect the current reading list and preceptorial and study group offerings. Works listed are studied at one or both campuses, although not always in their entirety.
Published by The MIT Press, Peter Pesic’s new book Sounding Bodies completes a trilogy on the profound influence of music on the sciences. A long-time tutor at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, he is Director of the Science Institute and Musician-in-Residence.
St. John's College tutor emeritus Bill Donahue (A67) has been awarded the 2022 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy.
Wiles's work requires careful analysis and a drive to learn about complex subjects quickly, and Wiles is adept at both. She credits these abilities, in part, to her time at St. John’s.
Keith Flaherty (AGI22) is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Clinical Research at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Center, where he specializes in melanoma treatment. He attended Yale University as an undergraduate and John Hopkins for medical school.
Aayush Thapa (SF22) works in the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), a particle physics division of LANL, where he also completed his ARIEL internship in summer 2022. Working at one of the top scientific institutions in the country is in many ways its own reward, but Thapa also has other things he wishes to gain from this experience.
Shannon Hateley (SF07) is a computational biologist and senior staff scientist at Ancestry.
Tutor and theoretical astrophysicist Jim Beall talks to Science magazine about the Event Horizon Telescope.
In Scientific American, Santa Fe tutor Natalie Elliot writes: “‘Ecological biosignatures’” hold promise for revealing alien organisms that may dwell within icy moons such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus.”
Every 20 years, a group of scientists—including Johnnie alum Margaret Fleming (A04)—gathers in the wee hours of the morning, rendezvous at a secret location on the Michigan State University campus, and digs up seeds that were originally buried 142 years ago
At his summer 2020 Hodson internship with NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), Austin Dumas (A21) frequently employed one of the quintessential skills students practice at St. John’s: the ability to formulate questions.
William Donahue of St. John’s College in Santa Fe sits down with NMiF senior producer Matt Grubs to talk about receiving the LeRoy Doggett Prize for his work in historical astronomy.
Through the Hodson Trust Internship Program, Sanju Baral (A20) spent the summer working at Psychbigyaan Network Nepal (PNN), a youth-led organization focused on raising awareness about mental health and psychology.
A Hodson internship allowed Tbel Abuseridze (A20) to spend his summer working in astrophotography.
While her original plans for summer 2020 were postponed, Sandrina Mislitchi (SF22) used a Pathways Fellowship to study introductory statistical methods and applications at University of Chicago.
As he moves out of the Lab Director position, Santa Fe tutor Eric Poppele considers the unique gifts of the Lab Program.
Marilyn Roper was part of the United States effort to get the first man on the moon. Now, she leads St. John's-esque discussions for her faith community.
Cynthia Keppel Hellman (A84) will receive a St. John's College Award of Merit at this year's Homecoming.
Clayton “Tex” Pasley (A11) is a recent recipient of the Powell Fellowship in Legal Services, an honor named for Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. that supports legal services for low-income populations.
Stephen Forman (A70) is a member of the Board of Visitors and Governors and a recent inductee into the Association of American Physicians. Here, he discusses how St. John’s is the perfect education for students seeking to advance in the medical field.
Josh Foster (SF97) decided to make a midlife career change and landed a position working with one of the world’s most respected institutions.
Michael Conway (SF94) and Jonathan Spooner (A96) have created a nonprofit educational training program for students entering the workforce.
For the first time since the Program’s science curriculum was adopted some four decades ago, source material for labs is available to students in Santa Fe in the form of spine-bound softcover books.
Though she began her education on a pre-med track, Emma Seba (SF20) soon discovered that the Program is what she’d been looking for all along.
Robin Burk (A72) recently gave a TEDx talk titled “Countering Collapse of Our Interconnected, Interdependent World.”
Melanie Santiago-Mosier (A00) planned to go to the Naval Academy, but ended up on St. John’s campus. Now, she’s an award-winning member of the solar energy field.
In her speech to a new class of Graduate Institute students, Emily Langston explains the eternal appeal of Euclid to those starting the Program.
Students from St. John’s College in Annapolis were recognized this month as Most Outstanding Delegation at the Maryland Student Legislature’s annual session.
Akiva Katz (SF18), who’s in his third year as a lab assistant, organized a fundraiser to recognize tutor emeritus Bill Donahue’s contributions as director of labs.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
The St. John’s College Santa Fe Class of 2004 has raised $145,000 for a fully functional, surgical steel armillary sphere to be installed on campus.
St. John’s College visiting tutor Kathleen Longwaters recently won the University of Texas Austin’s highest graduate student award for her dissertation.
Anthony Vitto (A70) learned to love math and science at St. John’s College, and is now a teleneurologist in New England.
Jake Stief (SF20) completed a Pathways Fellowship last summer at Harvard.
Don Hitt (AGI06) was a commercial airline pilot before he enrolled in the St. John’s College Graduate Institute.
St. John’s College students in Santa Fe partnered with the Office of Personal and Professional Development to hold a computer coding camp on campus.
While most St. John’s College students spent the end of January bundled up against a mid-winter chill, one Johnnie was working on an outdoor education program with teens in Jamaica.
Joy Nwodo (SF19) spent a day with alumna Elizabeth Buchen (SF96) as part of the college’s job shadowing program.
Sophomore Yunju Park took part in the college’s job shadowing program last summer in Canada.
St. John’s in Annapolis was accepted recently into the Maryland Green Registry for its ongoing environmental efforts.
Ariel Winnick (SF11, EC12) is studying medicine at Ben-Gurion University’s Medical School for International Health in Israel.
The sixth and final lecture of the Summer Wednesday Night Lecture Series in Annapolis will take place July 26 and focus on the effects of digital technology on learning.
Students in Annapolis and Santa Fe this fall are participating in a new digital technology preceptorial.
Terrance (T.J.) Schaub (SF18) had a lot of support in landing his summer 2017 Ariel Internship with Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Alumnus John Rees (A74) made a multi-year pledge to St. John’s, which allows him and the college to plan ahead.
Mike Wu (SF07) founded his own consulting firm that works with government agencies, utility companies and others to secure their power grids.
A gift of modern biology equipment catapults Santa Fe’s senior lab program well into the 21st century.
Efforts are underway to build quantum optics laboratories at the St. John’s College campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe.
Recent St. John's College graduate Mason Troupe (A18) is using a $10,000 grant from Projects for Peace to help a medical clinic expand in Gambia.
Ethologist Meghan Lockard (SF07) is working toward her PhD and conducting nematode worm research at The Rockefeller University in New York.
Dr. Justin Cetas (SF93) is an accomplished neurosurgeon and educator in the Pacific Northwest.
Former St. John’s student Richard Babicz (SF09) has done a little bit of everything since he graduated. Now he’s nearing the end of medical school.
The Mellon Foundation Study Group on Digital Technology is working to determine whether digital technology has a place in the St. John’s curriculum.
Owen Morgan (A17) studied at the Blumenfeld Lab at the Yale Neuroscience Imaging Center.
St. John’s College alumna Sarah Schoedinger (A92) is the senior program manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Education.
Michelle Urban (SF08) is CEO of Albuquerque-based Pressure Analysis Company (PAC), which designs and manufactures wireless technology to track head injuries in athletes.
Marybeth Beydler (A16), St. John’s student and spring intern at CERN, spoke about the alumni network at the college.
The St. John’s Environmental Club is devoted to creating awareness on campus about issues relating to protection, conservation, preservation, and restoration—with an emphasis on educating and empowering students.
St. John’s College graduate Krisin Hoch (SF16) spent her summer studying the cosmos as part of the Ariel Internship Program.
Andrea Hill (A16) studied chimpanzee eating habits at the Conservation Ecology Center at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC.
St. John’s College alumnus Ethan Goddard (A14) is now a commercial project manager for a solar company in Maryland.
Alumna Sophie Stauffer (SF12) recently completed post-master’s work at Los Alamos National Laboratory and is set to begin a new job with the New Mexico Environment Department.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
When St. John’s College junior Catherine Baldwin interned at the NASA History Program Office last summer, it provided her with a connection to the hit movie “Hidden Figures.”
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
During his Hodson summer internship, St. John’s student Tri Nguyen (A17) went from novice in the lab to performing his own experiments.
St. John’s College alumnus Tai Ragan (SF15) is set to begin a new job at NASA.
The program focused on helping train search-and-rescue dogs at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia.
Julia Leone (A12) recently was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to continue her work in conservation biology.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
Andrew Mize (A12) is a quality engineer specialist at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, the company’s largest motor vehicle manufacturing plant.
St. John’s College alumnus Matt Carver learned a lot in Annapolis, but he says the ability to push his own limits was among the most important lessons.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
St. John’s College graduate Robert Morris (SF04) is CEO of TerrAvion, a company that produces the highest volume of aerial imagery for agriculture in the nation.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
Four St. John’s College alumni who went on to prominent careers in math and science gave advice to students during the Alumni in Science Panel on the Annapolis campus.
St. John’s College alum David Hysong (AGI11) has been named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” for his efforts in cancer therapy development.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
St. John’s College alum Dr. Stephen Forman was part of a group that received national attention at the 128th Rose Parade in California.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
Erinn Woodside applied and started at the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College while still an active duty officer in the US Air Force.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
