Catherine Herfeld

Catherine Herfeld is a Professor of Philosophy and History of Economics at Leibniz University Hannover’s Institute of Philosophy. She is also an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (LMU Munich), affiliated with the Center for Higher Education and Science Studies (CHESS) at the University of Zurich, and a fellow at F.A. Hayek Program (Mercatus Center) and URPP 'Equality of Opportunity' (University of Zurich).

• Current ERC Starting Grant recipient for the MODEL TRANSFER project (2023–)
• Co-editor: Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge Elements series on History of Economics
• Board member: International Network of Economic Methodology, European Philosophy of Science Association
• Focus areas: Model transfer across domains, gender gap in philosophy, critique in social sciences

Her career includes prior roles as Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Fellow at MCMP, visiting scholar at Columbia and Stanford, and Guest Professor at the University of Vienna. She holds a PhD in history and philosophy of economics from Witten/Herdecke University, an MSc in philosophy of social sciences from LSE, and a diploma in economics from TU Berlin. Her research combines archival work, case studies, and quantitative-empirical methods to analyze scientific practices, particularly model transfers in economics. Recent publications include work on the utility of network analysis in HPS and historical exchanges of economic models with behavioral sciences.

Scientific awards include the Karl-Heinz Hoffmann Prize (2021). She serves on multiple editorial boards (e.g., Journal of Economic Methodology, Oeconomia) and leads the MODEL TRANSFER project, which studies how interdisciplinary model transfers drive scientific progress. Collaborations involve sociologists, psychologists, and international institutions.