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Last updated February 2026.
Basics
| Name | Megan Briers |
| Label | Historian of Science |
| mrbriers@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de | |
| Summary | PhD candidate in History of Science, focusing on women in nineteenth-century astronomy. |
Education
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2023.10 - Present Berlin, Germany
PhD
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Technsche Universität Berlin
History of Science
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2022.10 - 2023.06 Cambridge, England
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2018.09 - 2022.05 St Andrews, Scotland
Awards
- 2025.10
Procope Mobilität Scholarship
Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in Germany
Awarded 1700 euros to conduct a one month research stay at a French institution (Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu-Paris Rive Gauche).
- 2024.11
ICHM Grants for International Research-Related Activity
International Commission for the History of Mathematics
Awarded 300 euros to cover travel expenses for the Eclipse Reckoning conference in Edinburgh, November 2024.
Publications
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2025.12.01 Historical Notes: Photographing Coronal Streamers
Mathematics Today
Article for members magazine of the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications. Explores the photographic techniques employed by Annie Maunder to capture the coronal streamers in the 1898 eclipse.
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2025.08.28 Simon Naylor, The Observatory Experiment: Meteorology in Britain and Its Empire Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Pp. 275. ISBN 978-1-009-20723-2. £85.00 (hardback)
British Journal for the History of Science
Book Review.
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2025.06.01 Towards a Global History of the 1860 Total Solar Eclipse
HoST – Journal of History of Science and Technology
Collaborative work with Deborah Kent, Jesse Garrison, Daniel Belteki, Ileana Chinnici and Frédéric Soulu. Collective attempt to study the 1860 eclipse expedition from the perspectives of various expeditions.
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2024 -
2023.10.03 Wikipedia and the Portrayal of Collaborative Networks of Nineteenth-Century British Mathematicians
Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics: The CSHPM 2022 Volume
Results and discussion of network analysis conducted on Wikipedia articles of British mathematicians, as part of my undergraduate thesis.
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2022.02.01 Chasing change: the lasting legacy of India’s 1871 eclipse
Astronomy & Geophysics
Collaborative work with Deborah Kent and Mixie Billina. Funded by an RAS summer studentship.
Volunteer
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2025.12 - Present IMPRS Colloquium Organiser
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Co-organising the colloquium with Po-Yuan Cheng, fellow graduate student, putting together a program and creating graphics to advertise the events.
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2024.04 - Present Web Administrator
British Society for the History of Mathematics
Oversee the web infrastructure for the BSHM, including the website, emails and file storage. Editor of the BSHM blog and occasional graphic designer.
- Managed the creation of a new website
- Relaunched the blog to keep society members updated of our activites
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2023.10 - 2024.03 Teaching Assistant
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Managed the registrations, Moodle and administrative tasks for the Knowledge and its Resources: Concepts, Methods, Historiographies class.
Languages
| English | |
| Native speaker |
| German | |
| B1 |
Interests
| Women in Science |
| Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
| Gender |
| Digital Humanities |
| Archive Practices |
| Science Communication |