Columbia University’s Pamela Smith Honored by the American Historical Association

Pamela H. Smith, the Seth Low Professor of History and the director of the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University, is the recipient of the George L. Mosse Prize from the American Historical Association.

The prize was established in 2000 with funds donated by former students, colleagues, and friends of Professor Mosse, an eminent scholar of European history. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding major work of extraordinary scholarly distinction, creativity, and originality in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since the Renaissance.

Dr. Smith was honored for her book From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2022). She specializes in early modern European history and the history of science. Her current research focuses on attitudes to nature in early modern Europe and the Scientific Revolution, with particular attention to craft knowledge and historical techniques.  She is founding director of The Making and Knowing Project, founding director of The Center for Science and Society, and chair of Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience.

Professor Smith is a graduate of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. She holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.