Darina Martykánová obtained her Ph.D. in Modern History at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2010), her thesis being a long-term comparative study of engineers in Spain and in the Ottoman Empire. She was a Marie Curie Researcher in the Institute of History of the University of Potsdam (2010-2012). She was a Ville de Paris Fellow at the Centre d’études, turques, ottomans, balkaniques et centrasiatiques of the EHESS in Paris (2012-2013). She has published a book Reconstructing Ottoman Engineers. Archaeology of a Profession (1789-1914), Pisa. Her main interests are global and comparative history of state-building and the role of experts and expert knowledge in the emergence of modern governmentality. Since March 2013, she is working at the Institute of Philosophy at the CSIC in Madrid, focusing on the expert knowledge and decision-making, or, in other words, on the dynamics between technocracy and democracy in the Mediterranean.