Peter Galison
Professor Galison is the Pellegrino University Professor in History of Science and Physics at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in both Physics and the History of Science in 1983. His publications include Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (1997) and Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time (2003), and the book Objectivity (2007) was co-authored with Lorraine Daston. He is now finishing a book, “Building Crashing Thinking” about the back and forth between the self and modern technologies. In 2016, he established the Black Hole Initiative with colleagues in Astronomy, Physics, Mathematics—his Edge of All We Know, a film about these strangest of all objects, will premiere in 2020. As dramaturg, Galison collaborated with South African artist William Kentridge on a multi-screen installation, “The Refusal of Time” (2012) and the associated chamber opera, “Refuse the Hour.” His courses include: "Scientific Visualization: From Galileo to Black Holes,” "History and Philosophy of Experimentation;" "Fascism, Art and Science in the Interwar Years;" "Scientific Realism;" "The Einsteinian Revolution;" “Critical History,” “Doubt,” and “Filming Science.” Additionally, he leads regular meetings where students, faculty, and staff have the opportunity to present and discuss topics in the history and philosophy of physics, mathematics, technology, and, of course, black holes.
Ion Mihailescu
Ion Mihailescu received (PhD, 2018) in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. His dissertation explored the development of graphical methods and diagrammatic representations in the physical sciences in the 19th century. Ion has received a B.A. in History, Mathematics and Physics from Columbia University in 2010. Ion is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge. His current project looks at the use of weather charts in late-eighteenth-century meteorology and their direct connection with the graphical activity of William Playfair and Alexander von Humboldt.
Connemara Doran
Connemara Doran (PhD, 2017) is a Lecturer in the Harvard University Department of the History of Science. She specializes in the history and philosophy of the physical and mathematical sciences, in particular the history of astronomy and cosmology, mathematical physics, energy resources, and the environment. Her dissertation examined the question of the shape of space, from Henri Poincare’s mathematics and Albert Einstein’s general relativity to relativistic cosmology and NASA’s WMAP. She received her A.B. in History and Science and A.M. in History of Science from Harvard University in 2009. She her first book project was The Contested Science of Peak Oil in an Age of Abundance. Her second book project, Seeking the Shape of Space, explores the intellectual adventure to empirically determine the size and shape of the universe – to conceptualize, measure, and map the cosmos – during the long twentieth century. Dr. Doran was the 2017-18 Postdoctoral Guggenheim Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.