Dr Elena C Romero-Passerin d'Entreves

I am a cultural and transnational historian of science and knowledge, with a specialism in botany and plant history. I am currently writing my first monograph, Botanic Gardens and the Early Institutionalisation of Science (under contract with Routledge), which explores how the category of “science” was built through the spatial and institutional make up of European botanic gardens in the eighteenth century, including by purposefully appropriating and then excluding the knowledge of certain groups and communities such as women, working class individuals, and racialised and non-European communities. My work is invested in bringing to light the contributions of these groups in the history of science and in environmental history.
For my current research, as part of the "Plants, Enslavement, and Public History" project, I look at the gardens that enslaved people used to grow their own food or medicinal plants in the Caribbean in the long eighteenth century. I am particularly interested in the practical knowledge of horticulture and gardening of enslaved people how it impacted their lives and their environment.
I received my undergraduate and masters degree from Sorbonne University in France, and then got my PhD in Modern History from the University of St Andrews in 2021. Since then, I have been a Research Fellow for the Royal Horticultural Society, and postdoctoral assistant for the Universal Short Title Catalogue in St Andrews. I have also taught in St Andrews and the University of Exeter, before joining the University of Bristol in October 2025 as a Senior Research Associate in Environmental Histories of Enslavement.