Shira Shmuely

Shira Shmuely is a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Department II and a lecturer at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. Her work bridges the history of science, legal studies, and environmental history, focusing on intersections between scientific knowledge and law.

Education:

• PhD in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• LLM and LLB in Law from Tel Aviv University

Research Interestscenter on the historical negotiation of concepts like pain, empathy, and sentience in scientific and legal contexts. Her current work analyzes the evolution of ideas about animal minds in legal and scientific discourses over two centuries.

Publicationsinclude her award-winning book The Bureaucracy of Empathy: Law, Vivisection, and Animal Pain in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cornell University Press, 2023), which examines regulatory frameworks and ethical debates around animal experimentation, alongside studies on care, extinction, and sentience.

Affiliationsspan the MPIWG's Department II and Tel Aviv University's Cohn Institute, with prior involvement in projects such as At Arm’s Lengths: Octopus Consciousness as a Scientific and Legal Artifact and Man-Like Apes.