Douglas O'Reagan

I am a historian, writer, programmer, and economic consultant based in Boston, Massachusetts. As my undergraduate dual-majors in Physics (BS) and History (BA) from the University of Virginia attest, I have long been interested in both qualitative and quantiative research. My PhD in History from the University of California, Berkeley focused on the history of science and technology, and along the way I developed programming projects and quantitative research skills that advanced those skills.

As a historian, my research focuses on industrial science and technology in the context of the Cold War. I consider myself a historian of industry, technology, and national security. My first book, Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War (2019), is a comparative history of America, British, French, and Soviet programs to take German science and technology as a kind of "intellectual reparations" from the defeated nation. Someday I hope to write books about the histories of industrial espionage, trade secrets, and how economics, business, and law have dealt with the difficult problem of tacit knowledge, or "know-how."

As a programmer, my most recent project is The Disrespect Index, a ranking metric for college basketball teams based on how frequently they beat the spread. Several years ago I teamed up with a top management studies / economics scholar on a tool that uses patent data to illustrate the social networks of who has co-invested a patent with whom, over time: The Patent Co-Inventor Social Network Tool. I also have older, deprecated projects like FamilyGiftLister, a site for families to register and reserve gifts off of each other's Christmas lists to avoid duplication or annoying logistics.

Click here for a one-page Resume.
Click here for a full CV.

Taking Nazi Technology

Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War

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