The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced its 2014 Fellowship winners, more popularly known and the “Genius Grant”. One of the Fellowship winners is Pamela Long, an independent historian of late medieval and Renaissance history, and also of the history of science and technology. Her work combines the analysis of ancient and classical materials and archives from across Europe to figure out how societal issues such as, language, literacy and trade, affected the evolution of science, technology and art in the early modern period. Pamela Long’s current project looks at the cultural history of Roman engineering between 1557 and 1590, she talks to us about what she’s found in her research.