Leibniz Value of the Past: Fellows

Once a year, the Leibniz Research Association awards scholarships to excellent international researchers who work in the thematic area of historical authenticity. In 2019 we could, in cooperation with the DAAD, award Cambridge-Leibniz Museum & Collection Fellowships, which are specifically directed towards researchers and curators from Cambridge University and Leibniz Institutions as well as associated researchers.

Historical Authenticity Fellowships 2020

Leibniz Fellowships Value of the Past 2022

Leibniz Fellowships 2020

Leibniz-Cambridge Museum & Collection Fellowships 2019

Home Institution: Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt
Institute: Museum of Zoology, Cambridge
Franziska Wagner is a biologist who has specialized in comparative anatomy, functional morphology, evolution, and systematics of mammals and other vertebrates. She is writing her PhD thesis at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and worked as a guest researcher at the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt in the Section of Mammalogy. During her Master studies and PhD studies she visited mammal collections in Germany, Switzerland, and France and learned about their curatorial practice. She regularly presents her project on scientific meetings and publishes articles in academic journals. Since summer 2019 she works as a scientific trainee at the Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden to intense her qualifications in research, curatorial work, and public relations.
In her project Franziska Wagner analyses the consequences of the breeding of different snout lengths on intranasal structures i.e., the turbinals (skeleton of nasal conchae) in the domestic dog by the use of high-resolution computed tomography (µCT). With modern imaging techniques intracranial structures can be investigated non-destructively which offers the opportunity to study collection specimens of rare and endangered species, and even fossils. The skulls of the chosen dogs cover different ages and breeds, and the Eurasian wolf as the dog's ancestor serves for outgroup comparison. Based on the resulting µCT cross-sections of the nasal cavity virtual 3D models of selected structures are reconstructed. The data is analyzed morphologically and morphometrically. The turbinal skeleton of modern dogs differs from the Eurasian wolf, especially in brachycephalic (short snouted) breeds like the pug. Sighthounds by contrast are a group of dolichocephalic (long snouted) eye-hunting racing dogs of ancient origin whose turbinals are as well-developed as in the Eurasian wolf or in scent hounds like the German shepherd. Most modern breeds are affected by a strong inbreeding with genetic drift. By just comparing these morphologically extremely diversified forms with the wild Eurasian wolf several key elements of domestication over hundreds of dog generations are at risk of non-consideration. Hence, the general influences of a formerly more natural selection on the dog need to be evaluated on intermediate stages. The Museum of Zoology at the University of Cambridge for example houses skulls of dogs excavated in mummy pits. These individuals are supposed to represent an evolutionary connection between the wolf and 'incipient dogs', and the artificially selected pedigree dogs of today. A comparison of these Egyptian dogs to wild wolves from Lebanon, also present in the collection, and to the modern dog specimens can demonstrate how domestication has proceeded over the last centuries.
Home Institution: Deutsches Museum Munich
Institute: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge | June 2019
Artemis Yagou is an Athens-born historian of design and technology, currently based in Munich, Germany, where she is Research Associate at the Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Deutsches Museum. She is working on the project "How they Played: Children and Construction Toys (ca. 1840-1940)", with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) (2016-2021). Additionally, she is preparing a monograph on aspects of luxury in early modern Southeastern Europe. She has published extensively, including Fragile Innovation: Episodes in Greek Design History (2011 in English/2015 in Greek).
Exploring the material culture of the long eighteenth century, Yagou examined four pocket watches with Ottoman numerals from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum. English and continental firms produced large numbers of watches of this type for the markets of the Ottoman Empire. These products, both technical novelties and fashionable accessories, were highly popular among the local multiethnic populations. The pocket watches for the Ottoman market may be classified as examples of popular luxury, expressing the rise of the individual, the growing significance of pleasurable consumption, and the emergence of new forms of socialisation through product use. Furthermore, these watches often combined elements that may be described as "genuine" or "fake", which suggests that various forms and degrees of authenticity should be considered and problematised. The quantity-produced pocket watch with Ottoman numerals, an artefact incorporating both innovation and fashionability, offers an appropriate starting point for exploring the diffusion and significance of forgery practices outside the domain of high luxury.
Home Institution: Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge
Institute: Deutsches Museum Munich| November 2019
Joshua Nall is Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge. He joined the museum in 2013, having previously completed his MPhil and PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. His research focuses on mass media and material culture of the physical sciences after 1800. He has curated a variety of exhibitions and displays, including on globes, science and industry in Cambridge, and most recently the special exhibition Astronomy and Empire. His first book, News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860–1910, will be published by University of Pittsburgh Press in September 2019. With Boris Jardine he is also currently editing a primary source volume, Victorian Material Culture: Science and Medicine, to be published by Routledge.
Nall will use his Cambridge-Leibniz Museum & Collection Fellowship to support a research exchange between the Whipple Museum and the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Since 2013 he has been part of a research project critically reassessing the thorny question of fake scientific instruments in major museum collections, including the Whipple Museum. Using a variety of historical, curatorial, and scientific techniques, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, this initial research has already increased the number of known forgeries in the Whipple’s collection. With support from the Cambridge-Leibniz-Museum and Collection Fellowships 2019, this study will be improved and extended by facilitating a partnership between the Whipple Museum and Dr. Neeti Phatak, a materials science specialist working with the Deutsches Museum collection. Dr Phatak will visit the Whipple in the summer of 2019 to assist in further XRF analysis of the collection and to share her expertise in the complicated interpretation of resultant data. Nall will then undertake a reciprocal visit in the winter of 2019 to share his own curatorial and historical insights with the research and conservation teams at the Deutsches Museum. Our ambition is to establish baseline working techniques for the accumulation and interpretation of large quantities of XRF data across many different types of objects in multiple collections. This technique offers the tantalising opportunity to not only weed our forgeries, but also to help better date authentic instruments and interrogate their place of origin and the material techniques used in their construction, offering new insights into the making and circulation of scientific instruments.
Home Institution: Deutsches Museum Munich
Institute: Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge | August 2019
Neeti Phatak pursued her Doctorate in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Augsburg, Germany in 2016. She has a broad experience in the research and development of new and existing materials and their characterization – both in industry and academia- nationally and internationally. As a passionate material scientist, Neet Phatak is always keen and enthusiastic towards exploring varying domains where she could contribute her expertise in solving diverse problems.
Being associated with the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, since more than a year, she has been actively involved in the material characterization of various museum artefctas via non-destructive techniques, as X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectroscopy- aiming in bringing together the scientific and historical aspects in the analysis of museum artefcats for their authenticity and provenance.
Cambridge-Leibniz Museum & Collection Fellowship would be a great opportunity for Neeti in exploring the potentials of the XRF technique in the analysis of diverse museum artefacts- not only at the Deutsches Museums, Munich, but as well at the Whipple Museum, University of Cambridge. With support from the Cambridge-Leibniz-Museum and Collection Fellowships 2019, this study will be improved and extended by facilitating a partnership between the Deutsches Museum and Dr.Joshua Nall, a historian and curator at the Whipple Musuem. Dr Phatak will visit the Whipple in the summer of 2019 to assist in further XRF analysis of the collection and to share her expertise in the complicated interpretation of resultant data. Nall will then undertake a reciprocal visit in the winter of 2019 to share his own curatorial and historical insights with the research and conservation teams at the Deutsches Museum. Our ambition is to establish baseline working techniques for the accumulation and interpretation of large quantities of XRF data across many different types of objects in multiple collections. This technique offers the tantalising opportunity to not only weed our forgeries, but also to help better date authentic instruments and interrogate their place of origin and the material techniques used in their construction, offering new insights into the making and circulation of scientific instruments.
Home Institution & Institute: The Polar Museum, SPRI, Cambridge | German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven
Charlotte Connelly is a curator of science, technology and the environment at the Polar Museum, part of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Her current research in the history of science investigates the material culture of the physical sciences, and how recreation of past experimental practice can inform historical interpretation. She has published on the history of science and exploration, as well as on museology and how museum practice can be used to build dialogue between different types of audience, particularly with reference to climate science.
Martin Weiss is a historian of science at the German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History. In his current research he focuses on the history of the polar and marine sciences in the Cold War. The history of German research vessels serve as a point of departure for his historical analysis of the many interests (scientific, economic, geo-strategic) that came into play (and still come into play today) in determining the agenda and the public impact of polar and marine research. Previously, Martin focused on the history of museums as centres of knowledge exchange, both in Cold War East Germany and nineteenth century Holland. He is the author of the book „Showcasing Science – A History of Teylers Museum in the Nineteenth Century“.
In a new exhibition project, The Polar Museum and the German Maritime Museum are seeking to develop an exhibition, H2O: Ice, Oceans and Us (working title), about climate change and its impacts on our planet, in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The project will help tackle one of the biggest challenges museums face in conveying climate change issues: identifying engaging and comprehensible objects which document and illustrate the research underlying climate science, climate history and its predicted future effects on society. To this end, a best practice guide will be compiled.
Home Institution: German Center for Marine Biodiversity Research (DZMB), Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg
Institute: Museum of Zoology, Cambridge| September 2019
James Taylor is a marine ecologist who completed his Master’s studies at the University of Glasgow before undertaking his Doctoral research at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven in association with the Carl von Ossietzky Universität, Oldenburg. Taylor’s research interests include deep-sea macro- and megafaunal community analysis, video and imagery techniques for studying marine realms, genetics, and hydrothermal vent associated fauna. His doctoral dissertation titled “Temporal and Spatial Variability of Epibenthic Megafaunal Communities from the Arctic Deep-Sea LTER Observatory HAUSGARTEN” studied variation in megafaunal communities with data spanning more than a decade with particular emphasis on the deep-sea holothurians, Kolga hyalina and Elpidia heckeri, as well as the mollusc Mohnia mohni. This work was funded by a Research Grant for Doctoral Candidates and Young Academics and Scientists from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Taylor’s current post-doctoral research focuses on the study of material, both physical and image based, obtained during the IceAGE RR (Icelandic marine Animals: Genetics and Ecology – Reykjanes Ridge) expedition MSM75. Whilst this encompasses many areas of research, a key focus lies with the molecular, morphological, scleroclimatological, habitat and stable isotope analysis of the acorn barnacle Bathylasma hirsutum. B. hirsutum is known from the Azores to the Faeroe Islands in water depth of 200 m to 1829 m and has been observed on bedrock in high current areas, with further information on this species very limited. The awarded fellowship will directly address providing further information on the morphology of Bhirsutum in collaboration with the Cambridge Museum of Zoology via Micro-CT scanning and reconstruction techniques. The fellowship will also involve the donation of Bhirsutum specimens from the MSM75 expedition to the extensive Cirripedia collection at the museum, which also houses the historical Darwin barnacle specimens.