Lorraine J. Daston

Professor Lorraine Jenifer Daston is the Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute of the History of Science and an Honorary Professor at Humboldt Universitaet. She has done countless research on the history of the natural and human sciences from 16th-19th centuries. She has published on the history of probability and statistics (17th-19th cs.), natural history and natural philosophy (16th-18th cs.), the scientific persona (18th-19th cs.), changing standards of evidence and proof (16th-18thcs.), and the ideals and practices of scientific objectivity (18th-19th cs.). Current research interests include the moral authority of nature, the cognitive passions of wonder and curiosity, scientific drawing, and early modern ways of knowing.

After graduating from Harvard University with her Ph.D., she taught at Brandeis University, University of Chicago, and Georg-August Universitat, she settled at the Max Planck Institute of the History of Science. Some of her most notable books, Objectivity, The Empire of Chance, and Wonders and the Order of Nature, which have in culmination earned her Pfizer Prizes and the Bainton Prize.