Lorraine Daston is an American historian of science and director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Within the history of science, her work focuses on ideals and practices of rationality. Her work focuses on epistemological and ontological categories that shape scientific studies and their standards. She is Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1993) and member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.