Lydia Pyne is a writer and historian, interested in the history of science and material culture. She has degrees in history and anthropology and a PhD in history and philosophy of science from Arizona State University. Her field and archival work has ranged from South Africa, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, and Iran, as well as the American Southwest. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Nautilus, Slate, History Today, Electric Literature, and TIME, as well as The Public Domain Review; she is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.