Doctoral Research

The Predoctoral Fellows of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science undertake dissertation projects that form an integral part of the main research projects of the Institute. All Predoctoral Fellows at the MPIWG are affiliated with one of the Departments or Research Groups or with the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) of the Institute and undertake their research as part of the research activities of their respective unit. At the same time, and as part of the cross-departmental activities of the Institute, the Institute's Predoctoral Fellows meet once a month for a joint colloquium. During these meetings, one fellow usually presents their work or work samples according to the progress of their dissertation, or the group discusses select texts or films. The meetings are intended to be as informal as possible in order to provide an open and cooperative platform for exchange among the Predoctoral Fellows. The meetings also serve for exchange of information about life and work as a doctoral researcher in general and in the Max Planck Society in particular.

In addition to the monthly colloquium, all Predoctoral Fellows are invited to join the "Writing Wednesdays" that take place every Wednesday in the IMPRS seminar room (Boltzmannstraße 16, all day).

The central activities of the Predoctoral Fellows at the Institute are coordinated by the Academic Coordinator of the IMPRS, Sophie Schwarzmaier, together with the Predoctoral Representative of the Institute, Christopher Klauke. If you have any questions about life and work as a Predoctoral Fellow at the Institute, please feel free to contact them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who is the Degree Awarded By?

In Germany, the universities alone have the right to award doctorate degrees, and it is accordingly not possible to receive a PhD degree from a Max Planck Institute. The Predoctoral Fellows of the MPIWG are therefore enrolled at a university in Germany or abroad, but their projects are very often (but not necessarily) officially supervised by at least one scholar of the MPIWG.
How are Predoctoral Fellows Financed?

Many of the Predoctoral Fellows of the Institute receive financial support during their stay. Others are externally financed—e.g., by their university or by an external grant. Accordingly, Predoctoral Fellows are divided into two groups: Predoctoral Fellows, who are financed in part or in whole by the MPIWG, and Visiting Predoctoral Fellows, who are externally financed by the home university or other fellowships.
Do Predoctoral Fellows Belong to a Department?

Al Predoctoral Fellows at the MPIWG are affiliated with one of the Departments, Research Groups or the IMPRS of the Institute and undertake their research as part of the research activities of their research unit.
Do Predoctoral Fellows Work Together?

Whilst belonging to a Department, Research Group or the IMPRS, the Predoctoral and Visiting Predoctoral Fellows meet once a month for a joint colloquium as part of the cross-departmental activities of the Institute. During these meetings, one fellow usually presents their work or work samples according to the progress of their dissertation, or the group discusses select texts or films. The meetings are intended to be as informal as possible in order to provide an open and cooperative platform for exchange among the Predoctoral Fellows. They also serve for exchange of information about life and work as a doctoral researcher in general and in the Max Planck Society in particular.

In addition to the monthly colloquium, all Predoctoral Fellows are invited to join the "Writing Wednesdays" which take place every Wednesday in the IMPRS seminar room (Boltzmannstraße 16, all day).
How Can I Apply to be a Predoctoral Fellow?

If you are interested in a position as Predoctoral Fellow at the Institute, please contact the department or group leader most relevant to your scientific field of interest. The Call for Applications for a doctoral position at the IMPRS is published once a year on the IMPRS landing page. See also the Careers page for opportunities.

Predoctoral Fellows

Andrea Braun Střelcová

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Jun 2020-31 May 2025)

Internationalization or Centralized Control? Managing International Research Cooperation with Chinese Characteristics

astrelcova@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Simon Brausch

Predoctoral Fellow (1 May 2022-30 Apr 2025)

Assessing Certainty without Certainty: On the Use of Technical Tools for Assessing the Methodological Quality of Biomedical Research Data and its Role in the Emergence of Scientific Dissent

sbrausch@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Megan Rhian Briers

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Oct 2023-31 Mar 2027)

Women in British and American astronomical fieldwork in the nineteenth century

Dominic Dold

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Nov 2018-31 Dec 2025)

Definition and division in medieval Latin commentaries on Aristotle’s Historia animalium and De partibus animalium

Ruixuan Du

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Nov 2020-5 Feb 2025)

An Interplay between Chinese Traditional Healing and Modern Medicine from the 18th to Early 20th Century

rdu@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Zeynep Ecem Pulas

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2022-28 Feb 2026)

“Usual Suspects” in “Unusual Locations”: Infrastructure, Maintenance, and Expertise in the Late Ottoman Empire (1855–1922)

zecempulas@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Jakob Kaaby Hellstenius

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2022-28 Feb 2026)

Ignorance in the Age of Text: “Ignorant” Readers and Their Reading in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain

jhellstenius@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Riaz Howey

Predoctoral Fellow (1 May 2021-30 Apr 2025)

Premodern Agricultural Knowledge in New Persian

rthowey@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Christopher Klauke

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2022-28 Feb 2026)

The Politics of Music Capturing. Music Information Retrieval and Ethnomusicological Research, 1900–1970

cklauke@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Yishu Mao

Predoctoral Fellow (17 Aug 2020-16 Aug 2024)

Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence: Framing Governance in Germany, China, and the US

ymao@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Satria Amilius Quaijtaal

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2022-28 Feb 2026)

Science before Nature: An Epistemology of Perspectives in the Commentaries of Cuneiform Scholarly Traditions

saquaijtaal@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Leonie Rau

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Oct 2023-31 Mar 2027)

Tracing an Epistemic Genre: Premodern Arabic Recipe Collections as Resources of Knowledge

Dwirahmi Suryandari

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-31 Aug 2026)

Contestation of Knowledge in the Collection and Exhibition of Indigenous Objects by Catholic Mission Museums

Emily N. K. Tsui

Predoctoral Fellow (1 Jan 2023-31 Dec 2025)

The Strange as Knowledge: Collections of the Anomalous and Marvellous within Late-Imperial Leishu (1600-1900)

nktsui@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Lejie Zeng

Predoctoral Fellow (9 Sep 2022-8 Mar 2026)

Colorful Encounters: Nature, Science, and Dyes between Europe and China, 1880–1950

lzeng@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Visiting Predoctoral Fellows

Flavio Auer

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Mar 2024-30 Sep 2025)

Agnes Bauer

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Feb 2023-30 Jun 2024)

Erfassung der Psyche und Einhegung von Körperlichkeit: Die Geschichte apparativen, psychologischen Testens und das Verhältnis von Hand- und Kopfarbeit

Fabio Dominik De Gregorio

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Feb 2023-31 Mar 2024)

Latin-into-Hebrew: Medieval Natural Science across Linguistic Boundaries

Sam Ducourant

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Dec 2022-31 Aug 2024)

Standardization in Post-War Life Sciences

Trym Aleksander Eiterjord

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Jul 2020-30 Sep 2025)

The Geopolitics of Chinese Arctic Research

taeiterjord@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Erin Freedman

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Sep 2023-31 Jul 2024)

Fabricating Modern Fibers: Metaphors, Models, and Artifacts in Molecular Biology, 1920-1958

efreedman@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Sascha Freyberg

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (16 Jan 2023-31 Dec 2024)

Doctoral candidate at Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg Research Fellow at Ca' Foscari Università Venezia in the ERC-project Early Modern Cosmology Editorial Manager for Verum Factum: Studies and Sources on Political Epistemology (EOA book series).

The Unity of Science in the Anthropocene

sfreyberg@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Stefano Furlan

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Apr 2022-31 Jan 2025)

The Classical Age of Quantum Gravity: from Dirac to Wheeler

sfurlan@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Gloria Maritza Gómez Revuelta

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-29 Feb 2024)

Urko Gorriñobeaskoa Artolozaga

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Nov 2023-31 Jan 2025)

Historical epistemology and the evolution of the ether

Jelena Große-Bley

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Jul 2020-30 Sep 2025)

Forging ahead under a Changing Sky: Meteorological Services and Crop Seed Breeding as Climate Change Adaptation in China

jgrossebley@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Jonathan Haid

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-31 Aug 2026)

Cellulosenitrat: Eine Materialgeschichte der Geisteswissenschaften, 1849–1951

Mingyue Han

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Nov 2020-30 Sep 2025)

Scientific Journals and the Transparency of Research: From 20th Century to Open Science

mmhan@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Zvi Hasnes-Beninson

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 May 2023-31 Oct 2023)

Scientific Controversies as a Window to Modeling Processes in the Life

Clara Marie Kahn

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-31 Aug 2026)

Beyond Leaves: Cultivating Knowledge in Books of Hours (1470–1520)

Henry Kalter

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-31 Aug 2024)

Annina Sofia Lattu

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (25 Dec 2022-31 Jul 2024)

Open Science in University-Industry Research Collaboration in the EU and China

aslattu@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Xinchang Li

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (10 Dec 2023-10 Dec 2024)

Julius Martinetz

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (27 Jan 2023-29 Feb 2024)

CorDeep and the Sacrobosco Dataset: Detection of Visual Elements in Historical Documents

Javier Martínez Dos Santos

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Feb 2024-1 Mar 2024)

Beñat Monfort Urkizu

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Oct 2023-30 Nov 2023)

Fundamental Physics and Empiricism. The Plausibility of Cosmic Inflation

Núria Muñoz Garganté

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Dec 2022-31 Jan 2025)

Philip Anderson Against the Big Machines: And How Emergence Made its Way into Physics

ngargante@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Omri Polatsek

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2023-31 Aug 2026)

Agrochemical Transformations and their Knowledge Resources in Egypt, 1882–1952

Salome Rodeck

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Apr 2019-31 Dec 2024)

Symbiotic Worlding: Theories and Practices of Coexistence in Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway

srodeck@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Georg Schäfer

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Feb 2021-31 Dec 2023)

Die Erwirtschaftung des Anthropozäns? Die Rolle des modernen Wirtschaftens in den Entwicklungsdynamiken zur Entstehung des Anthropozäns: Ursprünge und neue Wege

gschaefer@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Juliane Schmidt

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (17 Oct 2022-31 Oct 2023)

NFDI4Objects: Research Data Infrastructure for the Material Remains of Human History

Noga Shlomi

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Sep 2021-31 Jul 2025)

The Evolution of Visual Language in Early Modern Cosmology

Anna Siebold

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Oct 2023-31 Dec 2024)

The Analysis, Interpretation, and Mediation of History Using Digital Research Methods and Tools. An Investigation into their History-Producing Mechanisms

asiebold@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Anna Simon-Stickley

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Nov 2023-31 Oct 2024)

The Other Ancient Egypt. Writing Histories in the Sciences and Humanities of Deep Time, 1800-1920.

asimon-stickley@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Sophia Spielmann

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (1 Feb 2021-31 Dec 2023)

A “Fair Trade” of Knowledge? Ipecacuanha as an Example of Practices of Knowledge Exchange Between South America and Europe, 16th-19th Centuries

sspielmann@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Dan Tan

Visiting Predoctoral Fellow (15 Oct 2023-31 Oct 2024)

Yuan Tao