Jennifer Hsieh

Jennifer Hsieh is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, affiliated with Department III and the Epistemes of Modern Acoustics Research Group. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University in 2017.

Her research explores the role of acoustics in modern state formation and urban subjectivity, focusing on historical transfers of noise monitoring technologies from New York and Japan to colonial Taiwan in the 1930s. This work builds on her dissertation, “Noise Governance and the Hearing Subject in Urban Taiwan,” which examined noise regulation through ethnographic and historical analysis of technological, bureaucratic, and informal practices in Taiwan from the mid-20th century to the present.

Jennifer has engaged with digital humanities methods through Stanford’s DHAsia Initiative, developing a geospatial mapping project to visualize noise complaint petitions in Taiwan. Her research has been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

• Geballe Predoctoral Fellowship
• Research fellowship at the University of Amsterdam’s Vossius Center for the History of Humanities and Sciences

She will soon transition to the University of Amsterdam, where she will continue her interdisciplinary work at the intersection of sound studies, history of science, and technology.