Peter Sachs Collopy

September 2026
541 S. Spring St. #504
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(216) 544-1564
peter@collopy.net
https://collopy.net/

Experience

2017– University Archivist and Head of Archives and Special Collections, California Institute of Technology.

Manage five archivists and an oral history interviewer. Acquire manuscripts and records, establish policies and procedures, curate and manage exhibitions, oversee oral history program, teach special collections sessions, and give presentations. Develop library-wide strategy and policy with University Librarian and other department heads.

2015– Managing Editor and Web Administrator, History of Anthropology Review.

Converted a print periodical into an open access web publication.

2015–2017 Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Digital Humanities Program, University of Southern California.

Taught interdisciplinary historical courses integrating primary sources and digital exhibit design. Organized conference on materiality of digital media.

2014–2015 Graduate Fellow for Teaching Excellence, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Pennsylvania.

Taught workshops for graduate students on syllabus and curriculum design. Observed and advised graduate student instructors.

2009–2015 Board of Directors, Mariposa Food Co-op.

Oversaw a community-owned grocery store, including as president for two years and secretary for one. Grew annual revenue from under $1 million to over $5 million and staff from nine to 45.

2002–2008 Software and Web Development Consultant.

Ported graphics software for visualizing accounting. Developed a web application for tracking music practicing. Designed and built websites for musicians and nonprofits.

2000–2007 Demonstrator and Camps and Classes Specialist, Great Lakes Science Center.

Conducted science demonstrations. Taught computer programming to children.

Education

2015 PhD, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.
2010 MA, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.
2007 BA with Highest Honors, History, Oberlin College.

Certificates

2026 Certificate of Proficiency with a Specialization in Book Design and Production, Rare Book School.
Introduction to the Principles of Bibliographical Description
Identifying and Understanding Twentieth-Century Duplicating Technologies
Bookbinding for Book Historians
Book Illustration Processes to 1900
Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books
2022 CopyrightX, Harvard University.
2020 Digital Archives Specialist, Society of American Archivists.
2017 Western Archives Institute, Society of California Archivists and California State Archives.
2013 Certificate in College and University Teaching, University of Pennsylvania.

Exhibitions

2026 Dare Mighty Things: From Rocketry to Space Exploration at Caltech JPL, with Victoria Castaneda, Kylie Neal, Penny Neder-Muro, Mariella Soprano, Madison Teodo, Andrew Truhan, and Bailey Westerhoff, Beckman Room, California Institute of Technology.
2024 Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920–2020, with Claudia Bohn-Spector, California Institute of Technology. Reviewed in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Rail, Alta, and Forbes.
2020 Becoming Caltech: Building a Research Community, 1910–1930, with Heidi Aspaturian, Loma Karklins, and Elisa Piccio, Beckman Room, California Institute of Technology.
2018 The Mind’s Eye: Richard Feynman in Word and Image, Beckman Room, California Institute of Technology.
2017 “Throop’s Superlative Opportunity”: The Story of the Gates Laboratory of Chemistry and Building a Chemistry Division, with Jennifer Torres, Parsons-Gates Hall of Administration, California Institute of Technology.

Publications

Edited Works

2024 Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920–2020, with Claudia Bohn-Spector (Caltech Library). Finalist for College Art Association’s 2026 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions. Reviewed in Technology and Culture.
2022 “Video and the Self: Closed Circuit | Feedback | Narcissism,” chapter in Video Theories: A Transdisciplinary Reader, edited by Dieter Daniels and Jan Thoben (Bloomsbury), 108–51.

Articles and Chapters

2024 “Passing in the Hallway: Art and Technology at Caltech, 1968–1972,” in Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920–2020, edited by Peter Sachs Collopy and Claudia Bohn-Spector (Caltech Library), 288–93.
“Between Paradigms: Video and Art Therapy,” in Modernism, Art, Therapy, edited by Suzanne Hudson and Tanya Sheehan (Yale University Press).
2023 “‘Video Is as Powerful as LSD’: Electronics and Psychedelics as Technologies of Consciousness,” in Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics, edited by Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock (MIT Press), 333–55.
2022 “Video and the Self: Closed Circuit | Feedback | Narcissism,” chapter introduction in Video Theories: A Transdisciplinary Reader, edited by Dieter Daniels and Jan Thoben (Bloomsbury), 108–18.
2019 “La vidéo et les origines de la photographie électronique,” translated by Jean-François Allain, Transbordeur 3: 26–35. English text available on the web.
2015 “Race Relationships: Collegiality and Demarcation in Physical Anthropology,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 51, no. 3: 237–60. Awarded the 2013 Early Career Award by the Forum for History of Human Science.
2014 “Video Synthesizers: From Analog Computing to Digital Art,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 36, no. 4: 74–86.

Reviews

2020 “Making Art Do Work,” review of Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture by W. Patrick McCray, Los Angeles Review of Books. October 22.
Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record, edited by Gregg Mitman and Kelley Wilder, Technology and Culture 61, no. 2: 697–98.
2019 The Cybernetics Moment, or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age by Ronald R. Kline, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 41, no. 2: 67–70.
Portable Moving Images: A Media History of Storage Formats by Ricardo Cedeño Montaña, Technology and Culture 60, no. 1: 337–38.
2015 The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued, edited by Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking, and Mona Jimenez, Technology and Culture 56, no. 4: 1008–10.

Essays

2026 “A Prank, a Story, and an Origin of Oral History at Caltech,” in David B. Zierler, To Illuminate Nature, from Molecules to the Cosmos: A Narrated History of Caltech Discovery from the 1920s to the 2020s (California Institute of Technology), 517–18.
2024 Introduction, with Claudia Bohn-Spector, in Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920–2020, edited by Peter Sachs Collopy and Claudia Bohn-Spector (Caltech Library), 14–19.
2020 “Ready, Set, Spark,” Caltech Magazine. Spring.
2019 “Richard Feynman,” in Design & Science, edited by Leslie Atzmon (Eastern Michigan University Gallery), 10–11.
2016 “What Does It Mean to Say Millennials Are Having Less Sex?” Nursing Clio. November 1.
“Ego Me Absolvo: Catholicism as Prototype in Paul Ryan’s Experimental Video,” Archée. July.
2014 “The Revolution Will Be Videotaped: Making a Technology of Consciousness in the Long 1960s” (video), Technology’s Stories. October.

Honors

2021 Dr. Fred Shair Award for Programming Diversity, California Institute of Technology.
2013 Early Career Award, Forum for History of Human Science.
2012 School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholar, University of Pennsylvania.
2007 Comfort Starr Prize in History, Oberlin College.

Grants and Fellowships

2023 PST ART: Art & Science Collide Implementation and Publication Grant for “Crossing Over: Caltech and Visual Culture, 1920–2020,” ($225,000), Getty Foundation.
2022 Grant to Archives for archival processing of the Robert F. Christy Papers ($10,000), as Co-Principal Investigator with Penelope Neder-Muro, American Institute of Physics.
2020 Pacific Standard Time: Art × Science × LA Research Grant for “Virtual Witnessing: Seeing Caltech Science,” ($83,000), Getty Foundation.
2019 Processing/Cataloging Assistance Grant for archival processing of the Wheeler J. North Papers ($10,000), California State Library.
2017 Grant to Archives for archival processing of the Ronald W. P. Drever Papers ($10,000), American Institute of Physics.
2016, 2017 Researcher Residency, Signal Culture. Two awards.
2012 Teece Dissertation Research Fellowship ($9500), University of Pennsylvania.
2011 MIT Press Travel Award ($500), Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society.
2009–2012 Graduate Research Fellowship ($122,500), National Science Foundation.
2009 Pottruck Graduate Presidential Prize Fellowship ($4000), University of Pennsylvania.

Recent Presentations

2026 “Early Modern Astronomy Books at Caltech.”
Zamorano Club. October 21.
2025 “Caltech Histories of Inclusion and Exclusion, 1891–2020.”
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Day of Inclusion, California Institute of Technology. November 21.
“Celebration, Critique, and Archival Salience: Approaches to the Meaning of Exhibition.”
History of Science Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans. November 13.
“Caltech Astronomy and Particle Physics Photographs.”
Oracle Conference, California Institute of Technology. October 21.
“The Beckmans at Caltech, 1923–1939.”
#MilestoneMoment, Beckman Foundation. June 10.
“Evolutionary Panpsychism, Media Ecology, Cybernetic Utopianism: Scientific Resources for Media Politics in the Long 1960s.”
The Future of Desire: Alternative Video and the Communications Revolution, Gray Area. May 17.
“The Revolution Will Be Videotaped: New Media of the Past in Archives and Beyond.”
Plenary Address, Society of California Archivists Annual General Meeting, Los Angeles. April 3.
2024 “‘Extra-Academic’ Careers,” panel.
Holmes Workshop, Yale University. February 12.
2022 “Archives and Memory,” with Alexandra Minna Stern.
Centering Race and Disability in Histories of Eugenics, Huntington Library. October 15.
“Becoming Caltech: Building a Research Community.”
Pasadena Museum of History. September 22.
“Robert Millikan, Eugenics, and Justice in the Laboratory and the Archives.”
American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting. February 20.
“Crossing Over: Art and Technology at Caltech, 1969–1971.”
Virtual Witnessing: Seeing Caltech Science, California Institute of Technology. February 4.
“Iterating Infrastructure from High Volts to X-Rays to Nuclear Physics: Early Caltech Science in the Archives.”
Physics Colloquium, California Institute of Technology. January 13.
2021 “Early Video Art through the Looking-Glass.”
Through the Looking-Glass: A Sesquicentenary Celebration, University of York. November 4.
“Uncomfortable Things: Using Collections for Participatory, Creative Engagement with Institutional Histories of Discrimination,” with Maura Dykstra.
Archives * Records 2021. August 6.
“Diversity Questions for Science, Technology, and Healthcare Archives,” with Nora Zaldivar.
Society of American Archivists Science, Technology, and Health Care Section Meeting. July 30.
“‘Pass Through the Barrier of the Skin’: Video and Microanalysis at the Boundaries of the Self.”
The Movement Movement: Histories of Microanalysis at the Intersection of Film, Science, and Art, Philipps-Universität Marburg. June 25.

Recent Sessions and Workshops Organized

2024 “Art and Science at Caltech: Four Histories.”
PST ART Symposia Day, California Institute of Technology. December 14.
2022 “Virtual Witnessing: Seeing Caltech Science.”
California Institute of Technology. January 31 – February 4.
2021 “Using Collections to Grapple with Institutional Histories of Discrimination.”
Archives * Records 2021. August 6.

Teaching

Rare Book School

California Institute of Technology

Claremont Graduate University

University of Southern California

University of Pennsylvania

Recent Institutional Service

2018– Committee on Libraries, Archives and Fellowships, Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
2017– Administrative Committee on Institute Art, California Institute of Technology.
2022–2025 Melvin Kranzberg Dissertation Fellowship Committee, Society for the History of Technology.
2024 Leonardo da Vinci Medal Committee, Society for the History of Technology.
2020–2022 Co-organizer, Critical Intersections: Conversations on History, Race, and Science, California Institute of Technology.
2019–2022 Steering Committee, Society of American Archivists Science, Technology, and Health Care Section.
Outreach Working Group, ARK Alliance.
2021 Early Career Award Committee, Forum for History of Human Science.

Grant Peer Review

2026 Southern California Program, Keck Foundation.
Collections Stewardship Program, National Endowment for the Humanities.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Journal Peer Review

2025, 2026 American Archivist.
2019, 2024 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.
2024 Leonardo.
2023 Artifact & Apparatus.
2020, 2021 Journal of Western Archives.

Memberships

2017– Society of American Archivists.
Society of California Archivists.
2010– Society for the History of Technology.
2008– History of Science Society.

Technical Proficiency