She is director of Department III, Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
[1] She is honorary professor for the history of technology, Technische Universität Berlin; adjunct professor, Institute of Sinology, Freie Universität, Berlin, and Tianjin University (2018–2021).
[2] She was previously a guest professor at the school of history and culture of science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
[1] Schäfer received her doctorate from the University of Würzburg, and her habilitation in the history of science in China.
[3] She won the History of Science Society: Pfizer Award in 2012, and the Association for Asian Studies' Joseph Levenson Book Prize in 2013, for her 2011 book The Crafting of the 10,000 Things (University of Chicago Press).