Stephanie Hood

Stephanie Hood is Deputy Head of Communications as part of the Research Communication and Management (RCM) team at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. In her role she is responsible for public communications strategy development, team and project management, and coordinating projects including the Journalist-in-Residence program and communications skills workshops. She is also the moderator of the Institute's podcast series "Science Social: Conversations on History, Science, and Society" and is currently enrolled on the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Level 5 Diploma program (expected completion 2025).

Since 2024 Stephanie Hood has led the project "Inclusive Public Communications Strategy in the History of Science," supported by the Max Planck Society Diversity Excellence Fund. In collaboration with MPIWG staff and researchers and external communications practitioners and researchers, the project seeks to identify asymmetries in communicating about people, topics, and epistemologies in the history of science that are often excluded through contemporary science communication. It aims to understand the reasons behind these imbalances and develop policies, formats, and mentorship programs that work towards a more inclusive public communications practice at the MPIWG that can also be emulated by other academic institutes, particularly those in the history of science and related disciplines.

Stephanie Hood's historical research interests include the nineteenth-century colonial history of public science communication, visual cultures, and oceanographic exploration. In 2023 she published the book chapter "Science, Photography, and Objectivity? Exploring Nineteenth-Century Visual Cultures through the HMS Challenger Expedition (1872–1876)," available open access in the edited volume Scientific Visual Representations in History (eds Valleriani, Giannini and Giannetto: Springer 2023). Her current project continues to explore the interconnections of the expedition’s visual and scientific practices with public communication, colonialism, and scientific racism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

After studying for a BSc (Hons) in Biology at the University of York UK (2009), Stephanie Hood was awarded an MSc (with Distinction) in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London (joint program, 2013). Before joining the MPIWG she worked as an editor at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich and for various organizations in the healthcare, NGO, and heritage sectors in China and the UK.