CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
Organization of Workshops
(2023) Workshop: Epistemic Practices Between Antiquarian Knowledge and the Early Modern Sciences, University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari, May 2023.
(2021) Workshop: The Weight of Things. Technical and Learned Knowledge about the Weight of Substances in Early Modern Europe. TU Berlin, February 2021.
(2017) Working group: “The Interdisciplinary Reconfiguration of Dense and Rare in Early Modern Europe.” TU Berlin, December 2017.
(2015) Symposium: “Early Modern Experiment and its Communities.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Berlin, March 2015. With Alisha Rankin (Tufts) and Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest).
(2015) Workshop: “Finding a Path through the Woods: Analyzing Francis Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum (II).” TU Berlin, March 2015. With Arianna Borrelli (TU Berlin).
(2014) Workshop: “The Optics of Giovan Battista Della Porta: A Reassessment.” TU Berlin, October 2014. With Arianna Borrelli, Friedrich Steinle (TU Berlin) and Giora Hon (Haifa).
(2014) Workshop: “The Making of Useful Knowledge.” Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, October 2014. With Thomas Morel and Giuditta Parolini (Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge).
(2012 and 2013) Workshops: “Experiments and the Arts of Discovery in Early Modern Europe.” Centre for the Foundations of Modern Thought, University of Bucharest, December 2012 and May 2013. With Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest) and Daniel Garber (Princeton).
Organization of Conference Sessions
(2022) Session: “Experimenting with the Past? Material Practices of Knowledge-Making between Antiquarianism and the Sciences.” Conference of the International Society for Intellectual History, Venice. With Jennifer Rampling, Princeton.
(June 2020; postponed to June 2021) Plenary Session of Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early-Modern Period, University of Amsterdam; “Object Lessons: Early Modern Empiricism, Natural Philosophy and Antiquarianism.” With Anna Marie Roos (Lincoln).
(2018) Session: “Reweighing Antiquity: Material Practices of Precision between Science and Humanities,” History of Science Society Annual Meeting. Seattle, November 2018. With Anna Echterhölter (Vienna).
(2016) Session: “The Power of Experiments: The Interdisciplinary Reconfiguration of Dense and Rare in Early Modern Europe.” 7th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Prague, September 2016.
(2012) Session: “Experimenting in the Baconian Style,” BSHS, CSHPS, and HSS Three Societies Meeting, Philadelphia, July 2012. With Peter Dear (Cornell) and Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest).
(2009) Session: “The Many Lives of the Projector: Inventors and Charlatans, Philosophers and Statesmen in Elizabethan and Stuart England,” History of Science Society Annual Meeting. Phoenix, AZ, November 2009.
PRESENTATIONS
Conferences
(May 2023). ” Antiquarian Experiments.” Workshop: Epistemic Practices Between Antiquarian Knowledge and the Early Modern Sciences, Venice.
(September 2022). “Experimenting with Material Antiquity.” Conference of the International Society for Intellectual History, Venice.
(August 2020) “Collecting Material Evidence from Mathematical Instruments: The Case of Johannes Kepler’s use of Galileo Galilei’s Compasso Geometrico e Militare as a Source of Experimental Data.” International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Bologna (online).
(June 2020; postponed, June 2021) “Antiquarianism and Quantitative Epistemic Practices.” Conference: Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early-Modern Period. University of Amsterdam.
(2019). The Features of the Early Modern Study of Ancient Measures. Conference: Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern Period. Queen’s University, Belfast, June 2019.
(2018) “Measuring the Measures of the Ancients. Metrology, Philology, and Experimentation in Georg Agricola and Johannes Kepler.” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, November 2018.
(2017) “Antiquarianism and the Quantification of Matter in Early Modern Europe.” The Making of the Humanities VI. Oxford, September 2017.
(2017) “Reconstructing an Overlooked Experimental Tradition: Johannes Kepler and Specific Gravities in the Long Sixteenth-Century.” Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early-Modern Period, Padua, April 2017.
(2016) “Writing a New, Interdisciplinary History of Specific Gravities in the Long Sixteenth-century.” 7th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, Prague, September 2016.
(2015) “Expert Witnessing in Early Modern English Technical Experimentation.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Berlin, March 2015.
(2014) “Natural Magic and the Rise of Experiment in the Early Modern Period: A few Historiographical Considerations.” Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early-Modern Period, Vienna, April 2014.
(2013) “Theory, Practice and Knowledge Production in an Early Stuart Mining Enterprise.” Symposium: Reworking the History of Chemistry: Practice, Revolution, Visualization and Exchange. 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester, July 2013 (paper accepted, but unable to attend).
(2012) “The Baconian Experiment as Probatio.” Three Societies Meeting, Philadelphia, 2012.
(2012) “Philosophizing as a Lord Chancellor: Francis Bacon on Privileges for Inventions and Experientia Literata.” Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early-Modern Period, Vancouver, April 2012.
(2011) “Opus, Inventio, Experientia Literata: Francis Bacon and the Experiments of the Mechanical Arts.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, March 2011.
(2010) “Francis Bacon and Mechanical Arts: the Early Stuart Patent System.” British Society for the History of Science Annual Meeting, Aberdeen, July 2010.
(2009) “Francis Bacon, the Patent System, and the Utopian Reform of Invention.” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, November 2009.
(2006) “The Alchemical Background to Francis Bacon’s Proteus.” History of Science Society Annual Meeting, Vancouver, November 2006.
Invited Talks
(March 2023) Invited speaker, workshop History in Science: Cases and Comparisons, Caltech, Pasadena (organizers: Jed Buchwald and Anthony Grafton).
(March 2022) Invited speaker, Sawyer conference Rigor: Control, Analysis and Synthesis in Experimentation, Indiana University, Bloomington (organizers: Jutta Schickore and William Newman).
(November 2021) Invited speaker, Recipe Project Seminar, Bucharest.
(December 2020) Invited commentator, Arbeitsgruppe für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Universität Wien.
(June 2020) Discussant, Department III Colloquium, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
(April 2020; cancelled) Workshop Science, Ethics and Mechanical Arts in Francis Bacon. Università Roma Tre.
(February 2020) “Experimenting on the Weight of Things: Johannes Kepler on Specific Gravities.” Berlin Prime Matter Workshop. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
(Spring 2019) “The Early Modern Investigation of Ancient Measures: A Comparative Approach.” All Souls College, University of Oxford.
(Spring 2019) “Historical Metrology in Early Modern England.” Society of Antiquaries of London.
(2017) “The Baconian Natural and Experimental Histories as an Epistemic Genre.” Seminar Für Mittlere Und Neuere Geschichte, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, November 2017.
(2017) “Reconstructing an Experimental Tradition: The Discussion of Specific Gravities in Johannes Kepler’s Messekunst Archimedis.” Thomas Harriot Seminar, St. John’s College, University of Durham, July 2017.
(2016) Keynote Speaker. “Fructiferous Experiments: the Baconian Garden as a Laboratory.” Conference: Manipulating Flora. Gardens as Laboratories in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, January 2016.
(2014) Discussant, Conference: Reading How-To; The Uses and Users of Artisanal Recipes. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, September 2014.
(2014) Discussant, Conference: Testing Drugs and Trying Cures in the Pre-Modern World. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, June 2014.
(2013) “Alchemy and the Electric Spirit in Isaac Newton’s General Scholium.” Workshop: Isaac Newton’s General Scholium to the Principia: Science, Religion and Metaphysics. A Tercentenary Workshop. University of King’s College, Halifax, October 2013.
(2012) “Francis Bacon’s Early Formulations of Experientia Literata.” Workshop: Experiments and the Arts of Discovery in Early Modern Europe. University of Bucharest, December 2012.
(2012) Discussion Leader, Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum Workshop. Department of Philosophy, Princeton University, May 2012.
(2012) “Francis Bacon and the Shape of Experientia Literata: the Role of Technical Inventions.” Research Centre for the Foundation of Modern Thought, University of Bucharest, March 2012.
(2011) “The Notion of Consensus in Francis Bacon’s Matter Theory.” Colloquium: Francis Bacon and the Materiality of the Appetites: Stoicism, Medicine and Politics. Warburg Institute, London, June 2011.
(2011) “Weighing Matter: the Origins of Francis Bacon’s Experiments on Specific Gravities.” Colloquium: Alchemy and chemistry: continuities and fractures. History of Chemistry Seminar, Oxford Brookes University and University of Oxford, May 2011.
(2010) “The Role of Technological Invention in Francis Bacon’s Philosophy of Experiment.” Emphasis Colloquium, University of London, January 2010.
(2008) “Francis Bacon and the Mining Entrepreneurs of the Early Stuart Period.” Thomas Harriot Seminar, St. John’s College, University of Durham, December 2008.
Departmental Talks
(2013) “The Material Origins of Experimentation: Disciplines of Profit and the Rise of Empiricism in Early Modern Britain.” Forschungskolloquium zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Technische Universität Berlin, November 2013.
(2010) “Between Invention and Experiment: Mechanical Arts in Francis Bacon.” History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium, Indiana University, November 2010.