Daston is currently the Director of the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Honorary Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

The author of many wide-ranging essays, Daston's books include Wonders and the Order of Nature (Zone, 2001) (with Katherine Park) and Things That Talk: Object Lessons From Art and Science (Zone, 2004) (editor). Her Classical Probability in the Enlightenment was awarded the Pfizer Prize.