Etienne S. Benson is a historian specializing in the intersections of science, politics, and the environment, with a focus on the United States and Europe from the eighteenth century to the present. Together with

Dagmar Schäfer Dagmar Schäfer is a German sinologist and historian of science. She is director of Department III, Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. She is honorary professor for the history of technolo ...

, he currently serves as a Director at the

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (German: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) is a scientific research institute founded in March 1994. It is dedicated to addressing fundamental questions of the history of knowled ...

in Berlin. His department "Knowledge Systems and Collective Life" examines the interplay between knowledge systems, political structures, and societal dynamics, focusing on how knowledge shapes collective decision-making and governance, particularly in the context of environmental challenges and sustainability. Benson earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2008 and has held academic positions at institutions such as Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago (Wolf Humanities Center). Prior to that, he received an AB in cognitive neuroscience from Harvard College in 1999 and an MA in psychology from Stanford University in 2001. He is the author of ''Wired Wilderness: Technologies of Tracking and the Making of Modern Wildlife'', Johns Hopkins University Press, (2010) and ''Surroundings: A History of Environments and Environmentalisms'' (2020), which examine the intersections of technology, environmentalism, and wildlife conservation. He serves on the advisory boards of several committees and journals, including The Journal of the History of Biology and Osiris, and is a member of the executive council of the

Society for the History of Technology The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) is the primary professional society for historians of technology. SHOT was founded in 1958 in the United States, and it has since become an international society with members "from some thirty-five ...

(SHOT). Through his interdisciplinary scholarship published in various academic journals and through his public engagement, Benson has made significant contributions in exploring human-animal relations, conservation history, environmentalism, and the development of Earth and environmental sciences

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Etienne Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Environmentalists 21st-century historians Historians of science Max Planck Institutes researchers Harvard College alumni Stanford University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni