Elaina Foley
Email elainafo@usc.edu
Education
- BA Yale University
-
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 , 2025-2026
- “Fragility and Resistance: Museum Collections as Living Ecosystems, CALM Caucus Futures Roundtable” History of Science Society Annual Meeting , 2025-2026
- “Decomposing Collections: Relating to Rot in Berlin’s Natural History Museum” 2025 Scholars Workshop, Umwelt Center for Germanic Studies & Environmental Humanities at Ohio State , 2024-2025
- “A Felt and Measured Threat: Understanding Material (and Existential) Issues in Natural History Collections” ESHS Annual Meeting , 2024-2025
- “Rot as Relation: Reconsidering Preservation in Natural History Collections” EASST & 4S Annual Meeting , 2023-2024
Other Presentations
- “Legacies of poison: material (and existential) issues caused by mercuric chloride’s degradation within botanical collections”, Invited guest speaker, National Museum Cardiff, Wales, 2024-2025
-
- 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.
-
- USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life Summer Research Stipend, 2027
- New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellow, 2026-2027
- Alexander von Humboldt German Chancellor Fellow, 2023 – 2025
- Yale Club of New Haven’s Greg Yamanaka Prize, 2023
- Yale Library Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prize, 2023, 2023
- Annexstad Foundation’s “Leaders for Tomorrow” Scholarship, 2018 – 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, 2020
-
Professional Memberships
- History of Science Society, 2025 –