Elaine Ayers works on the intersections of art, exploration, and natural history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the British and Dutch tropics. She received her M.A. in the Program in the History of Science from Princeton in 2015, and is co-advised by D. Graham Burnett and Erika Milam. In spring 2015, she completed general examination fields in the History of the Life Sciences (major field, with Erika Milam), Museums & Collecting (with D. Graham Burnett), Book History (with Anthony Grafton), and Travel, Trade & Empire across the Indian Ocean (with Michael Laffan). 

Before coming to Princeton, Elaine received her B.A. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Dean’s Honors) with a minor in African Studies. During her time at Princeton, she has lectured at institutions like the Wagner Free Institute of Science and has published in magazines like Cabinet Magazine, The Appendix and The Public Domain Review.

In 2018-2019 she is a visiting researcher at Stanford University's Ad Fontes Naturae | Natural Things Project, contributing to a digital humanities project, an exhibit, and a series of talks, conferences, and publications. During the academic year she will hold Princeton's Dean's Completion Fellowship, a curatorial fellowship at the Yale Center for British Art, a visiting appointment at the Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens, and the Albert M. Greenfield Fellowship at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine.