John L. Heilbron, Professor Emeritus of History of Science and former Vice Chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, passed on November 5, 2023, in Padua, Italy, at the age of 89. In recognition of his critical and enduring contributions to HSNS, Professor Cathryn Carson honors his life and legacy in the obituary, “John L. Heilbron (1934–2023): In Memoriam,“ published in Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (HSNS).

Whether we know it or not, we live with the legacies of those who preceded us. One of John Heilbron’s legacies was HSNS. For more than a quarter century, this journal was “John’s journal.” The journal mirrored its editor, and his judgment fundamentally formed it. Even through change, those who knew John can still see his trace here; we live within its shimmering outlines and respond to its call.

Born on March 17, 1934, a native of San Francisco, John was drawn into the post–World War II rush to the sciences and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1950s and 1960s. Asking himself, however, what he most fundamentally wanted to do, he switched his attention from physics to history after earning a master’s degree. At Berkeley he trained with Thomas Kuhn and other faculty in the Department of History. When he came to the history of science in these postwar decades, the discipline was centrally engaged in setting its own standards and terms. In this generational project, John was part of a tight-knit cohort of younger scholars in the history of the physical sciences who traveled the same path and made this nascent profession their own.

Cathryn Carson; John L. Heilbron (1934–2023): In Memoriam. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 1 September 2024; 54 (4): 521–526. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2024.54.4.521