Erik M Conway

My C.V.

    Employment

    • Historian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 2004-present
    • Historian, NASA Langley Research Center, 1999-2004
    • Fellow, National Air and Space Museum, 1997-1999
    • United States Navy, 1990-1994

    Publication Summary: >25 scholarly publications with >9300 citations, H-index 19, I10 index 26, 10 books, including Merchants of Doubt (>100,000 copies, nine foreign editions, History of Science Society Watson-Davis Prize, short-listed for Los Angeles Times book prize, made into a documentary film distributed by SONY Pictures Classics); and The Collapse of Western Civilization (>50,000 copies, twelve foreign editions).

    Honors and Awards

    • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, elected 2023
    • Senior Fellow, Research Institute in History of Science and Technology at Caltech and the Huntington, 2019-2020.
    • Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2018-2019
    • Athelstan Spilhaus Award, American Geophysical Union, 2017
    • Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize, History of Science Society, 2011
    • NASA History Division Award, 2009
    • 2008 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics History Manuscript Award
    • 2004 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics History Manuscript Award

    Teaching

    • SIOC 292, Introduction to Climate Science and Policy, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Winter 2016-2018.

    Fellowships, Grants, Contracts

    • NASA Contract for oral histories of NASA’s Discovery Program. 2022-present
    • NASA Contract for a history of Near-Earth Object Research, 2016-2019.
    • NASA Contract for a History of Atmospheric Science, 2002-2005.
    • NASA Contract for a History of Supersonic Transport Research, 1999-2002.
    • Guggenheim Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Air and Space Museum, 1998-1999.
    • National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant #NSF/SBR-9729517, 1997.
    • Guggenheim Pre-doctoral Fellowship, National Air and Space Museum, 1997-1998.
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    Education

    • 1998: Ph.D., History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota
    • 1990: B.S., Geomechanics, University of Rochester

    Professional Service

    • History of Science Society Council, 2014-2017.
    • Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize committee, 2014-2017.
    • Dibner Prize committee member, 2009-2011.
    • Isis advisory editor, 2009-2011.
    • Co-organizer, Dibner workshop in history of science at Caltech, on Science and the Cold War, May 2010.
    • Co-organizer, Dibner Institute Workshop on History of Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, May 2006.
    • Robinson Prize Committee, Society for the History of Technology, 2004-2006.
    • Founding editor of the “Envirotech Newsletter,” SHOT Environment and Technology Special Interest Group, 2001-2004.
    • Co-organizer (with Hugh Gorman), “Monitoring the Environment” workshop, Hagley Museum and Library, 17-18 July 2003.
    • Chairman, Forum for the History of American Science, History of Science Society, 2001-2003
    • Steering Committee, Earth and Environment Forum, HSS, 2000-2003

    Documentary Film

    JPL and the Space Age series

    Merchants of Doubt, Participant Media, 2014.

    Website development

    Served as initial writer and consultant for NASA’s Webby award winning Climate Change website, 2007-2009. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/

    Publications

    Books

    W. Bernard Carlson and Erik M. Conway, eds., Electrical Conquest (Springer, 2024).

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth (Bloomsbury USA: February 2023).

    Erik M. Conway, Donald K. Yeomans, Meg Rosenburg, A History of Near-Earth Objects Research (NASA: July 2022).

    Erik M. Conway, Exploration and Engineering: JPL and the Quest for Mars, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015).

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (Columbia University Press, 2014).

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury USA, 2010).

    Erik M. Conway, Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

    Michael Reidy, Gary Kroll, and Erik M. Conway, Science and Exploration (ABC-Clio, 2007).

    Erik M. Conway, Blind Landings: Faith, Progress, and Nature in the Development of Aircraft Landing Aids, 1918-1960 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

    Erik M. Conway, High Speed Dreams: NASA and the Technopolitics of Supersonic Transportation, 1945-1999 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

    Research Articles

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “From Anti-Government to Anti-Science: Why Conservatives Have Turned Against Science,” Daedalus (Fall 2022).

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “The Magic of the Marketplace,” in Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, eds. Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer (NY: Basic Books, 2022).

    Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway and Charlie Tyson, “How American Businessmen Made Us Believe that Free Enterprise was Indivisible from American Democracy,” in The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States, eds. W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston, Cambridge University Press, 2021.

    “Designing Mars Sample Return, From Viking to the Mars Science Laboratory,” Solar System Exploration at 50 Proceedings, NASA, 2022.

    Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway, David J. Karoly, Joelle Gergis, Urs Neu, Christian Pfister, 2018. “The denial of global warming” in Palgrave Handbook of Climate History Sam White, Christian Pfister, and Franz Mauelshagen, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 149-171.

    Erik M. Conway, “Simulation and Spacecraft Design: Engineering Mars Landings,” Technology and Culture, October 2015.

    Erik M. Conway, “Bringing NASA Back to Earth,” Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, eds. Naomi Oreskes and John Krige, MIT Press, 2014.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2012. “Perspectives on global warming: A Book Symposium with Steven Yearley, David Mercer, and Andy Pitman.” Metascience: 21:531-559. DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9639-9.

    Erik Conway and Naomi Oreskes, 2011. “Communicating the science of climate change,” Judy Lawrence, Alana Cornforth, Peter Barrett, eds., Climate Futures: Pathways for Society, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, December 2011.

    Erik M. Conway, “The International Geophysical Year and Planetary Science,” in Making Polar Science Global, ed. Roger D. Launius, Palgrave McMillan, 2010.

    Erik M. Conway, “Earth and Planetary Science: A Symbiotic Relationship?” in NASA’s First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives, ed. Steven J. Dick, NASA SP-1010-4704, 2010, pp. 563-586.

    Naomi Oreskes, and Erik Conway, 2008, “Challenging knowledge: How climate science became a victim of the Cold War,” Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, Stanford University Press, pp. 55-89.

    Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, and Matthew Shindell, 2008. “From Chicken Little to Dr. Pangloss: William Nierenberg, global warming, and the social deconstruction of scientific knowledge,” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 38 (1): 109–152.

    Erik M. Conway, “Satellites and Security: Space in Service to Humanity,” in Societal Impact of Spaceflight, eds. Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius, NASA SP-2007-4801, 2007, pp. 267-288.

    Erik M. Conway and Mirella Flores, “Deep Space 1: A Revolution in Space Exploration,” Quest 14: 2 (2007), 41-51.

    Erik M. Conway, “The World According to GARP: Scientific Internationalism and the Construction of Global Meteorology, 1961-1980,” Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, eds., Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science: Historical Studies of American Military and Scientific Interactions (Scarecrow Press, 2007).

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “Deny, Deny, Deny: How to Sow Confusion over Climate Change,” in Agnotology: The Social Construction of Ignorance, Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, eds. (Stanford University Press, 2008).

    Erik M. Conway, “Drowning in Data: Satellite Oceanography and Information Overload in the Earth Sciences,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37:1 (2006), 127-153.

    Hugh S. Gorman and Erik M. Conway, “Monitoring the Environment: Taking a Historical Perspective,” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (2005) 106:1-10, DOI: 10.1007/s10661-005-0755-0.

    “Echoes in the Grand Canyon: Public Catastrophes and Technologies of Control,” History and Technology 20:2 (June 2004).

    “The Politics of Blind Landing,” Technology and Culture (January 2001), 81-106.

    “Simon Lake” and “Carl Lukas Norden,” biographical sketches in American National Biography, 1999.

    Essays, Reviews, and Posters

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway, “Faith in Markets,” Claremont Review of Books, September 22, 2023, 23:4, pp. 6-8.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway, “Out of Business,” RSA Journal, January 1, 2023 169:2, pp. 31-33.

    Erik M Conway, “Digitizing and Automating Near-Earth Object Discovery: A Brief History, AGU Fall Meeting 2022, poster: NH12C-0298.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway. “Trump’s Big Lie is Getting Him Impeached,” The Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-02-09/impeachment-big-lie-donald-trump-republican-party-climate-change-tax-cuts

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2020. “Trump’s coronavirus failures? Thank Ronald Reagan,” The Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-09/op-ed-trumps-coronavirus-failures-thank-ronald-reagan.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway, “Unlimited Information is Transforming Society,” Scientific American, September 2020.

    James Burke and Erik Conway, “The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Planetary Exploration,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Planetary Science, 2020.

    Erik M. Conway and Randal K. Jackson, “Communicating climate change to a Suspicious Public: How best to explain what we know?,” Poster ED33B-3510, AGU annual meeting 2014.

    Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes, “Why Conservatives Turned Against Science,” The Chronicle Review, 9 November 2012.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “The Collapse of ‘Western’ Civilization: A View from the Future,” Daedalus 142:1, Winter 2013.

    Scott Hubbard, “Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery,” Quest 19:3 (2012), 59.

    “Climate in Context: A Review of Klima,” Metascience 2012, doi:10.1007/s11016-012-9695-9.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, H-Net Environment Review Response to “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” 2011.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Where to from here?” The Climate Spectator, November 15, 2010.

    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/where-here.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Will we ever get action on climate change?” September 8, 2010. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/08/oreskes/

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Distorting science while invoking science,” Science Progress, August 10, 2010. http://www.scienceprogress.org/2010/08/distorting-science-while-invoking-science-2/.

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. Shadow Elite: Merchants of Doubt—Do scientific denialists have no shame? Huffington Post, June 17, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-oreskes

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Global Warming Deniers and their Proven Strategy of Doubt,” Environment 360, June 10, 2010. http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2285

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Defeating the Merchants of Doubt,” Nature 465: 686-687, June 10, 2010. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7299/full/465686a.html

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Attack on Climate Scientist just Latest in a Long Line.” CNN.com June 9, 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/07/oreskes.climate.change/index.html

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Seeds of Doubt Against Climate Science,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2010, print edition and on line at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/08/opinion/la-oe-oreskes-20100608

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Climate Change Denial: A History,” The New Statesman, June 1, 2010, on line at http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2010/05/climate-scientists-science

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010. “Scientists Who Favor Ideology over Fact,” The Washington Post, May 28 2010, on line at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/05/scientists_who_favor_ideology.html

    Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “Defeating the Merchants of Doubt,” Nature (10 June 2010), 465: 686-687.

    David A. Mindell, “Between Human and Machine,” Isis, 2008.

    Erik M. Conway, “From Rockets to Spacecraft: Making JPL a Place for Planetary Science,” Engineering and Science 70 (4), 2007, pp. 2-10.

    William F. Ruddiman, “Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate,” Journal of the History of Biology, March 2007.

    J. Samuel Walker, “Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective,” Environmental History, 2006.

    Frank N. Laird “Solar Energy, Technology Policy, and Institutional Values,” Environmental History, April 2003.

    Thomas Parramore, “First in Flight,” Technology and Culture, January 2003.

    Janet Bednarek, “America’s Airports,” Technology and Culture, October 2002.

    Michael H. Gorn, “Expanding the Envelope: Flight Research at NACA and NASA,” Public History, 2002.

    Johan Sanne, “Creating Safety in Air Traffic Control,” Technology and Culture, July 2001.

    Recent Presentations

    “The Astrobiological Imperative and Mission Planning at JPL,” AGU Fall Meeting 2023, December 13, 2023.

    Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes, “The Big Myth,” Midwest Renewable Energy Association, June 24, 2023.

    Zocalo panel on distrust of science, Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, July 19, 2019. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2019/07/19/distrust-of-science-is-as-american-as-apple-pie/events/the-takeawa

    “Thinking about Climate Denial,” Columbia History of Science Group, Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory, March 1, 2018.

    “Modes of Denial,” Paris Festival of Ideas, November 12, 2017.

    “Using Models to Understand Near-Earth Object Hazards, AAAS Pacific Division annual meeting, June 22, 2017.

    “Merchants of Doubt: Turning Americans against Science after the Cold War,” Glendale Community College, April 27, 2016; Bodega Marine Laboratory, October 19, 2016.

    “Boundary work on anti-science: A view from the climate war,” AAAS annual meeting, January 21, 2016.

    “Dreaming of Rocks from Mars: Scientific Desires and the Engineering of Mars Missions, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, April 22, 2016.

    “The Penumbra Falls,” University of California, Santa Barbara, February 12, 2015; and University of Minnesota, Duluth, April 21, 2016.

    “Communicating Climate Science,” American Society for Environmental History annual meeting, 2015.