The 2026 ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Article Prize
ICOHTEC is pleased to announce the results of the 2026 Maurice Daumas Article Prize.
Created in 2011, the Maurice Daumas Prize recognises outstanding articles in the history of technology published by young scholars. The prize is sponsored by the Université de technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM), France.
The 2026 competition once again confirmed the vitality and international reach of early-career scholarship in the history of technology. The Prize Committee received 23 submissions from scholars working in 13 countries. The Committee noted the high quality of the submitted work and the range of topics addressed across different fields of the history of technology.
After its deliberations, the Committee decided to award the ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Article Prize 2026 to:
Boyd Ruamcharoen, for the article:
“Tropicalizing the Portable Radio: Electronics and the U.S. Military’s Battle against Fungi in the Pacific War,”
Technology and Culture, Volume 65, Number 2, April 2024, pp. 497–529.
Boyd Ruamcharoen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University. His work brings together environmental history, the history of science and technology, and the history of the U.S. empire in the twentieth century. His research also engages with science and technology studies and media studies.
The Prize Committee praised the article for its rich and original analysis of the use of radio and other electronic devices by the U.S. Army in tropical environments during the Second World War. Drawing on a substantial body of sources, the article shows the importance of climate-proofing for the history of electronics miniaturisation and contributes to a broader understanding of the “tropicalisation” of technology.
The Committee also awarded a Diploma to:
Hyeok Hweon Kang, for the article:
“Global History and the Measures of Early Modern Technology: Europe, East Asia, and the Case of Smoothbore Ballistics,”
Journal of World History, Volume 36, Number 2, June 2025, pp. 169–204.
Hyeok Hweon Kang is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Affiliate Faculty in Comparative Literature and Thought and in the Department of History. His current book project, Artisanal Heart, under contract with the University of Chicago Press, examines how artisans and “ingeniators” contributed to material design and knowledge-making in partnership with the Chosŏn Korean state.
The Committee recognised Kang’s article as a highly interesting and well-supported piece of analysis, combining a variety of data with strong conceptual interpretation. The article makes an important contribution to the history of military technology, the history of science and material culture.
ICOHTEC warmly congratulates Boyd Ruamcharoen and Hyeok Hweon Kang on these distinctions, and thanks the Maurice Daumas Prize Committee for its work in evaluating the 2026 submissions.
The Previous Winners
2025: Reynaldo de los Reyes Patiño: “Contesting cornucopia: Life and death of the Mexico City refinery, 1932-2010”, Journal of Energy History / Revue d’histoire de l’énergie, 12, 2024, p. 1-22 https://stm.cairn.info/journal-of-energy-history-2024-1-page-1c?lang=en
2024 : Adewumi Damilola Adebayo “Electricity, Agency and Class in Lagos Colony, c.1860s–1914”, Past & Present, no. 262 (February 2024), p. 168-206. DOI 10.1093/pastj/gtad001
2023 : Rebecca L. Jackson, for her paper “The Uncertain Method of Drops’: How a Non-Uniform Unit Survived the Century of Standardization”, Perspectives on Science, vol. 29, no. 6, 2021, pp. 802-841. DOI 10.1162/posc_a_00395 ex-aequo with Jan Hua-Henning, for his paper “Opening the Red Box: The Fire Alarm Telegraph and Politics of Risk Response in Imperial Germany, 1873–1900”, Technology and Culture, Volume 62, Number 3, July 2021, pp. 685-708. DOI 10.1353/tech.2021.0104
2022 : Andrew Morris, for his paper “’The joint labours of ingenious men’: John Smeaton’s Royal Society network and the Eddystone Lighthouse,” Centaurus Vol. 63, no. 3, 2021, pp. 513–531. DOI 10.1111/1600-0498.12398
2021 : Dominique Berry, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, for his paper “Making DNA and its becoming an experimental commodity” published in 2019 in Environment and History, 25, 219-244
2020 : Luke Keogh, Senior Curator at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Australia, for his paper “The Wardian Case: Environmental Histories of a Box for Moving Plants” published in 2019 in Environment and History, 25, 219-244.
2019 : Suvobrata Sarkar for his paper “The Electrification of Colonial Calcutta: Role of the Innovators, Bureaucrats and Foreign Business Organization, 1880-1940” published in Studies in History 34.1 (2017): 48-76. DOI: 10.1177/0257643017736194
2018 : Mirjam Sarah Brusius, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Oxford / German Historical Institute, for her paper “Photography’s Fits and Starts: The Search for Antiquity and its Image in Victorian Britain” published in History of Photography, 40.3 (2016): 250-266,DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2016.1209027
2017 : Gemma Cirac Claveras, Postdoctoral Researcher at Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés, France) for her paper “Factories of Satellite Data Remote Sensing and Physical Earth Sciences in France” published in ICON. Journal of the International Committee of the History of Technology, 21 (2015): 24–50. Full text PDF
2016 : William Rankin (Yale University) for his article “The Geography of Radionavigation and the Politics of Intangible Artifacts” published in Technology and Culture, 55.3 (2014): 622-674. DOI: 10.1353/tech.2014.0077
2015 : Stefan Krebs (Université du Luxembourg) “‘Dial-gauge versus Senses 1-0’: German Car Mechanics and the Introduction of New Diagnostic Equipment 1950-1980” published in Technology and Culture, 55.2 (2014): 354-389. DOI: 10.1353/tech.2014.0034
2014 : Donna J. Drucker (Technische Universität Darmstadt) for her article “Keying Desire: Alfred Kinsey’s Use of Punched Card Machines for Sex Research” published in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 22.1 (2013): 105-125. DOI: 10.7560/JHS22105
2013 : Nathan Ensmenger (Indiana University) for his article “Is chess the drosophila of artificial intelligence?” published in Social Studies of Science, 42.1 (2012): 5-30. DOI: 10.1177/0306312711424596
2012 : Mara Mills for her article “On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener, and the Hearing Glove” published in Differences, 22.2-3 (2011): 74-111. DOI: doi.org/10.1215/10407391-1428852
2011 : Joseph Masco (University of Chicago) for his article “Bad Weather: On Planetary Crisis” published in Social Studies of Science, 40.1 (2010): 7-40. DOI: doi.org/10.1177/0306312709341598