this article is about the american philosopher not the australian sociologist and university administrator of the same namesandra g harding born 1935 is an american philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory epistemology research methodology and philosophy of science she taught for two decades at the university of delaware before moving to the university of california los angeles in 1996 she directed the ucla center for the study of women from 1996 to 2000 and coedited signs journal of women in culture and society from 2000 to 2005 she is currently a distinguished professor of education 1 and gender studies 2 at ucla and a distinguished affiliate professor of philosophy at michigan state university3 in 2013 she was awarded the john desmond bernal prize by the society for the social studies of science 4s earlier recipients of this prize include robert merton thomas s kuhn mary douglas and joseph needhamshe has developed the research standard of strong objectivity and contributed to the articulation of standpoint methodology this kind of research process starts off from questions that arise in the daily lives of people in oppressed groups to answer such questions it studies up examining the principles practices and cultures of dominant institutions from the design and management of which oppressed groups have been excluded she has also contributed to the development of feminist antiracist multicultural and postcolonial studies of the natural and social sciences asking the extent to which paradigms like feminist empiricism are useful for promoting to goals of feminist inquiry she is the author or editor of many books and essays on these topics and was one of the founders of the fields of feminist epistemology and philosophy of science this work has been influential in the social sciences and in womengender studies across the disciplines it has helped to create new kinds of discussions about how best to relink scientific research to prodemocratic goalsshe has been a visiting professor at the university of amsterdam the university of costa rica the swiss federal institute of technology 4 and the asian institute of technology she has been a consult to several united nations organizations including the pan american health organization unesco the un commission on science and technology for development 5 and the un development fund for women phi beta kappa selected her as a national lecturer in 2007 she has lectured at over 300 colleges universities and conferences on five continentsduring what is known now as the science wars she was part of a debate regarding the valueneutrality of the sciences this aspect of her work has been criticized by some scientists harding referred to newtons principia mathematica as a rape manual in her 1986 book the science question in feminism a characterization that she later said she regretted