Pamela H. Smith

Pamela H. Smith serves as the Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University and founded the Center for Science and Society, directing its flagship Making and Knowing Project. Her academic leadership centers on reconstructing historical craft practices through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Her research investigates craft and practice as foundational ways of knowing, focusing on material culture, embodied knowledge, and the transmission of practical techniques across early modern Europe and Eurasia. Smith pioneers hands-on historical reconstruction methods to analyze how artisans generated, recorded, and transformed knowledge, bridging history of science with material studies.

Smith's recent publications reveal consistent patterns in trans-regional knowledge exchange, emphasizing material complexes and socio-technical networks. Her 2022 monograph and 2019 edited volume demonstrate how craft practices operated within global systems, with recurring themes in reconstruction methodology, material agency, and the epistemological value of making.

As director of the Making and Knowing Project, Smith secured major collaborative funding to produce open-access resources including 'Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France' (2020), the Research and Teaching Companion, and the EditionCrafter digital publishing platform. She currently leads longue durée investigations into pre-industrial industry's socio-natural environments.