Silvia Pérez-Criado

Silvia Pérez-Criado is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department “Knowledge Systems and Collective Life” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her research focuses on the histories of chemistry, agriculture, environmental health, and scientific knowledge in the twentieth century. At the MPIWG, her current project investigates the historical development of intensive greenhouse agriculture in southern Spain, focusing on the relationships among chemical practices, labor, health, environmental change, and collective memory.

She received her PhD in Historical and Social Studies on Science, Medicine, and Scientific Communication from the University of Valencia in 2024. Her dissertation examined DDT in Francoist Spain as a socio-material product shaped by power relations, knowledge production, and ignorance. The dissertation was awarded the 2025 Hernández Morejón Prize for the best doctoral dissertation by the Spanish Society for the History of Medicine.

She holds a BS in Chemistry and an MEd in Science Education from the University of Granada, as well as an MA in History of Science and Scientific Communication from the University of Valencia, where she received the Extraordinary Master’s Award. She has conducted research at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia and at CIUHCT–University of Lisbon, and has taught at universities in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. Since 2023, she has served as Secretary of the EuChemS Division of History of Chemistry. Her research has also received three New Scholar Awards from the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.