Marwa Elshakry

Marwa Elshakry is an Associate Professor at Columbia University, specializing in the history of science, technology, and medicine in the modern Middle East. Her research bridges cultural and intellectual history with the study of scientific exchange and adaptation.

• Ph.D. — Princeton University (2003)
• M.A. — Princeton University (1997)
• B.A. — Rutgers University (1995)

Her work critically examines the cultural politics of scientific translation, the role of religion in shaping scientific discourse, and the transnational movement of ideas. She has published extensively on topics like Darwinism in Arabic, the intersection of science and scripture, and the colonial dynamics of scientific knowledge transfer.

Marwa's publications highlight themes such as the historiographical challenges of mapping science's global journey, the theological interpretations of scientific concepts in Islamic contexts, and the impact of missionary activities on scientific education in the Ottoman Empire. Her scholarship underscores the agency of non-Western actors in recontextualizing scientific knowledge.