Elaina Foley

Summary Statement of Research Interests

Working across archives and museum collections, Elaina’s research explores the material culture of natural history, with an emphasis on process of preservation, contamination, and rot.

Conference Presentations

• “She will draw them without an Expence and thank them for the Favour”: Gender, Nature and the Creation of Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737-39)” ESHS & HSS Annual Meeting , 2025-CONT
• “Decomposing Collections: Relating to Rot in Berlin’s Natural History Museum” 2025 Scholars Workshop, Umwelt Center for Germanic Studies & Environmental Humanities at Ohio State , 2024-CONT
• “Fragility and Resistance: Museum Collections as Living Ecosystems, CALM Caucus Futures Roundtable” History of Science Society Annual Meeting , 2024-CONT
• “A Felt and Measured Threat: Understanding Material (and Existential) Issues in Natural History Collections” ESHS Annual Meeting , 2023-CONT
• “Rot as Relation: Reconsidering Preservation in Natural History Collections” EASST & 4S Annual Meeting , 2023-CONT

Other Presentations

• “Legacies of poison: material (and existential) issues caused by mercuric chloride’s degradation within botanical collections”, Invited guest speaker, Wales, 2023-CONT

• NYU STS-UY 2914: Ethics of Death and Dying: “Dangerous Memories: poisonous preservation in/of museums”, Fall 2024

Essay

• (2025). “The Weight of Air.”. Carleton University Art Gallery..

Journal Article

• Julie Chun Kim and Adrianna Link (Ed.). (2026). “Transforming Collections, Preserving Futures: 2030 at the Museum für Naturkunde.”. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 115,pp. 195-221.

• “Renewing World(s).” 2022. Reimaging and Reinventing Rituals: the Guggenheim Summer College Workshop E- Book. https://readymag.com/u1881633060/3914102/ , 2021-2022

• New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellow, 2026-2027
• USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life Summer Research Stipend, 2026-2027
• Alexander von Humboldt German Chancellor Fellow, 2023 – 2025
• Yale Club of New Haven’s Greg Yamanaka Prize, 2022-2023
• Yale Library Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prize, 2023, 2022-2023
• Saybrook College Research Fellowship and Richter Fellowships, 2021-2022
• Yale College Public Service Research (“Research for a Better World”) Grant, 2021-2022
• Kirby Simon Human Rights Fellowship, 2019-2020
• Annexstad Foundation’s “Leaders for Tomorrow” Scholarship, 2018-2019

Professional Memberships

• History of Science Society, 2025 –