2025 Notes and Records Essay Award: 1st Prize

🌿 Honored and Grateful 🌿

I'm thrilled to share that I’ve been awarded First Prize in the 2025 British Royal Society’s Notes and Records Essay Award for my article, “From Curiosity to Marvel: The Shared Experience of the American Agave Plant by Early Members of the Leopoldina.”

This piece explores how early modern scientists encountered and interpreted the agave plant in gardens throughout Germany—not just as a botanical specimen, but as a powerful site of wonder, translation, and epistemic transformation leading to divine contemplation within global science.

My deepest thanks to the award committee for this recognition and to the Leopoldina Freundeskreis, which funded this research project in its early stages—and to my colleagues and mentors whose thoughtful conversations and insights shaped this work.

You can see the official announcement here.