Speaker:  Chris Dornan
Title:  How to Communicate with Other Worlds:  From Sputnik to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2015
Time:  7:00 pm
Place: Ottawa Public Library Main Auditorium (120 Metcalfe Street, Ottawa, ON)

Biography:  Christopher Dornan is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, where he teaches the course “From Sputnik to Google Earth: A Cultural History of Satellite and Space Communication.” He holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, an M.A. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. in Communication from McGill University.  He taught for two years at Cornell University before joining the faculty at Carleton in 1987.

He has worked as a reporter for the Edmonton Journal, an editor and editorial writer for the Ottawa Citizen, and a columnist for the Globe and Mail and CBC National Radio.  In 2006 he was Erasmus Mundus visiting scholar at the Danish School of Journalism and the University of Aarhus.

Among other venues, his academic work has appeared in Critical Studies in Communication, the Media Studies Journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Topia, Journalism Studies, and the research reports of The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing.  He is the co-editor (with Jon Pammett) of The Canadian Federal Election of 2015 (Dundurn Press) along with five previous volumes in this series. He was a principal writer and editor for both volumes of the 2012 government-mandated Aerospace Review and the Canadian Space Agency’s 2014 Space Policy Framework. He is chair of the board of Reader’s Digest Magazines (Canada).

A selection of his criticism and essays can be found at http://www.educatedguesses.ca