All Souls College, University of Oxford
Author, Historian of Science
Nuno Castel-Branco
Book
The Traveling Anatomist
The University of Chicago Press
Public Writing
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
Scientific American
Research Fellow
All Souls College, Oxford
Former Fellow at
I Tatti (Harvard University)
Max Planck Institute (Germany)
Who I Am
I am a historian of science at All Souls College, Oxford.
I did my PhD at Johns Hopkins University.
Before becoming a historian, I also studied Physics at Tecnico Lisbon, the leading STEM university in Portugal.
I now study science in the early modern period — when scientific inquiry intersected with religion, culture, and everyday life.
More broadly, I write about the human stories that underlie the emergence of modern science.
Recent Updates
Writing
‘A Four-Eyed World’ Review: The Story of Spectacles — Wall Street Journal
The sweet scientific vindication of ‘I told you so’ — Washington Post
Why the pope is right to weigh in on AI — Washington Post
Thinking the Earth with the Body — Isis 115 (2), 312-334
Galileo and the Pandemic — Wall Street Journal
Galileo and the Pope Fell Out Over a Cicada Story — Scientific American
Talks & Other Highlights
Galileo Among the Physicians, HSS, Edinburgh — July 2026
The Anatomy of a Conversion, SCS Conference, Chicago — June 2026
A Panel on The Traveling Anatomist, Medici Archive Project, Florence — April 2026
The Galileo Affair and Why It Still Matters, St. Michael’s Hall, Oxford — February 2026
A Discussion on The Traveling Anatomist, All Souls College, Oxford — November 2025
Problematizing Polymathy, Princeton University — October 2025