Donna Bilak

Donna teaches jewelry studies at Pratt as well as history of early modern science and technology to Humanities and STEM students at NYU and Stevens Institute of Technology. Donna’s research combines workbench and archive to examine the interplay of culture and technology (and vice versa) as drivers of environmental change.

Donna co-directs the Future of Jewelry Research Accelerator (with Brice Garrett) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and directs the materials research group Active Matter. Current projects include developing a biomimetic environmental art installation on Governors Island (with Farzad Mahootian, NYU), and experimental research in recreating imitation gemstones (vitrified metals and minerals) based on 17th-century alchemical recipes.

Donna’s publications include the Special Issue, Gold & Mercury: Amalgamated Histories in Chemistry, Culture, and Environment (Ambix 2023), and Furnace & Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary  (University of Virginia Press, 2020), co-edited with Tara Nummedal and awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Prize by the American Historical Association.

PhD – Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture
Bard Graduate Center

MPhil – Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture
Bard Graduate Center

MA – History
York University

Ontario College Advanced Diploma – Jewelry Arts
George Brown College of Applied Arts and Technology

Guest Editor, “Gold & Mercury: Amalgamated Histories in Chemistry, Culture, and Environment.” Special Issue, AMBIX: The Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 70.1 (February 2023).https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yamb20/70/1

“Living Then and Now with Gold and Mercury.” In Gold & Mercury Special Issue, AMBIX, 70.1 (February 2023): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2023.2192590

(With George Vrtis) “Environmental Alchemy: Mercury-Gold Amalgamation Mining and the Transformation of the Earth.” In Gold & Mercury Special Issue, AMBIX, 70.1 (February 2023): 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2023.2192131

“Ch.3 Laboratories and Technology: Chymical Practice and Sensory Experience.” In A Cultural History of Chemistry in the Early Modern Age, ed. Bruce T. Moran, 67–88. Volume 3 of A Cultural History of Chemistry, gen. eds. Peter Morris and Alan Rocke. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

(With Tara Nummedal) Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.26300/bdp.ff

“Chasing Atalanta: Maier, Steganography, and the Secrets of Nature.” In Furnace and Fugue. https://doi.org/10.26300/bdp.ff.bilak

(With Tara Nummedal) “Interplay: New Scholarship on Atalanta fugiens.” In Furnace and Fugue. https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_305_ie_19

“Out of the Ivy and into the Arctic: Imitation Coral Reconstruction in Cross-Cultural Contexts.” Special Issue, “Rethinking Performative Methods in the History of Science.” Guest Editor, Marieke M. A. Hendriksen. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 43.3 (September 2020): 341–366. https://doi.org/10.1002/bewi.202000010

“Making and Knowing Pedagogy.” In Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, eds. Pamela H. Smith et al. Columbia University Libraries, NY: The Making and Knowing Project, 2020. https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_305_ie_19