Claire Conklin Sabel is a PhD candidate in the history and sociology of Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of the 2021 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) award. Her dissertation, “Rare Earth: Gemstones, Geohistories, and Commercial Geography between Southeast Asia and Europe, 1600-1750,” investigates how the Indian Ocean gem trade influenced knowledge of the earth in both Southeast Asia and Europe in the early modern period. She has published her research in Gems in the Early Modern World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and New Earth Histories (the University of Chicago, forthcoming 2023).

Claire’s research follows gemstones from mines to marketplaces across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans into the hands of artisans, merchants, naturalists, and nobility. Bringing together the history of science, craft, and commerce, her project asks how knowledge of the earth and its natural resources was shaped by changing patterns of long-distance trade. During her Fulbright-Hays fellowship, she visits archives in India, the Netherlands, and the UK, before arriving in Indonesia. During her time in Indonesia, Claire is based in Jakarta, researching the Dutch East India Company archives at the Arsip Nasional (ANRI) and collections at the Perpustakaan Nasional. She is affiliated with Universitas Brawijaya in Malang, the EUTENIKA research network, and the Spice Routes group at the Research Center for Area Studies (PRW-BRIN), part of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities at BRIN.