Gisela Hürlimann
© Sven Ellger
Prof. Dr. Gisela Hürlimann
Send encrypted email via the SecureMail portal (for TUD external users only).
From September 1, 2021, to September 30, 2026, Gisela Hürlimann held the Chair of History of Technology and Economy at the Institute of History at TU Dresden.
Having earned her doctorate with a dissertation on the history of transportation and innovation, completed her habilitation with a monograph on the history of taxation, and engaged in teaching and research in the history of higher education—as well as working on projects in Dresden related to the technology and infrastructure of culinary taste (restaurants and hotels) as well as animal-based raw materials, Gisela Hürlimann takes a thematically broad approach that integrates the history of technology and science, economic and business history, cultural history, and human-animal studies.
Raised in Switzerland, Gisela Hürlimann studied in Zurich and Barcelona and taught at the Universities of Zurich, Basel, Fribourg (Switzerland), and Bern, as well as at ETH Zurich, between 2001 and 2021. At ETH Zurich, she served as a senior assistant professor in the Chair of the History of Technology until 2020.
Research fellowships took her to the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University, and the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego.
In Germany, her academic career began in 2017 as a visiting professor in the field of history of technology at TU Berlin and continued in 2019–2020 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
Prior to her appointment to the Chair of History of Technology and Economy, she served as a visiting professor in the history of technology and the history of the science of technology at TU Dresden from April to August 2021.
Since October 2026, she has been working in Switzerland as co-director of an eight-year research and publication project on the modern history of the canton of Zug. She is also a lecturer and visiting scholar in the Department of History at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
PD Dr. phil. habil. Gisela Hürlimann has served as second vice-chair of the board of the Society for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology (GWMT) since September 2026 and has been a member of the GWMT Award Committee since 2023. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Eisenbibliothek’s conferences on the history of technology and on the Scientific Advisory Board of NZZ Geschichte.