The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science is delighted to announce that Etienne Benson has accepted the position of director of our new Department II, "Knowledge Systems and Collective Life." He will take up his position on July 1, 2022.

Etienne Benson is a historian of environmental science, policy, and activism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He joins us from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where he currently works as Associate Professor. Benson earned a PhD at MIT and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. He is also an alumnus of the MPIWG, having been a Research Scholar in the department directed by Lorraine Daston in 2010–2013.

We very much look forward to welcoming Etienne Benson back to the MPIWG as director. Details will be announced over the course of 2022.