Dagmar Schäfer is a historian of science, technology and China. She is director of Dept III Artefacts, Action, Knowledge, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and concurrently Honorary Professor, History of Technology, Technical University, Berlin; and Guest Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong, and Tianjin universities. She has published widely on the Premodern history of China; technology, materiality, and the processes and structures that lead to varying knowledge systems.