@cmadruga.bsky.social
Postdoc researcher based in Berlin.
Working on the history of sourcing and accumulation of natural history collections, 19th-20th centuries, with emphasis on the interstices between histories of collecting and histories of environment and biodiversity.

Visiting Researcher at the Humanities of Nature research center of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung.

Co-Editor with Déborah Dubald of the special issue "Situated Nature: Field Collecting and Local Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century" published in the Journal for the History of Knowledge (2022).

Earlier research for my PhD "Taxonomy & Empire. Zoogeographical knowledge on Portuguese Africa, 1862-1881" (University of Lisbon, 2020), focused on the scientific and political uses of the zoological collections shipped from African territories which were studied in the Lisbon Zoological Museum of the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa, under the direction of naturalist and museum director José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907); and on the study of Bocage's colonial thought, his correspondence and scientific networks.

In 2020-2024,  I worked on developing provenance research methods specific to colonial natural history collections; the connections between epistemologies of nature and the history of environment, empire, and zoological collections; and the political meanings of scientific localities in zoological catalogues and online repositories. 

I have previous experience in museum education, exhibition design, and as a curator of historical collections. 

Member of the Collection < > Ecologies Collective;
Co-convenor of the CHSTM Research Group "Collections Ecologies."

Interview with Sarah Pickman, for the Order of Multitudes website
Talk with Michael Robinson for the Time to Eat the Dogs podcast