Erik Conway
Erik Conway is a historian of science and technology at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. At JPL, his work has been focused on documenting, understanding, and explaining the key role that NASA has played in the Earth and space sciences. Throughout his career, Conway’s work has been at the intersection of science and technology in the later 20th century, and mostly related to aerospace. Conway is the bestselling author of numerous, including Merchants of Doubt, which she co-authored with Naomi Oreskes, which has been translated into nine languages and made into a documentary film produced by Participant Media and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. Conway has also written on topics as diverse as aviation infrastructure development in the 1930s and 1940s to Mars exploration in the 2000s, and dozens of articles and essays. In addition, he is also a frequent public speaker.
EARLY CAREER
Conway has been, at various junctures in his life, a nuclear field electronics technician in the U.S. Navy, a student of geomechanics, and a naval officer.
He served as damage control assistant, and briefly acting chief engineer, of a tank landing ship and as an operations planner for a Pacific Fleet amphibious squadron.
He had small roles in planning the US withdrawal from Somalia in 1994 as well as the noncombatant evacuation operation from Rwanda.
MEDIA & APPEARANCES
Conway has spoken to numerous audiences on the “space race” of the 1950s and 1960s.
He has spoken on the role of military investment in the development of launch vehicles.
He was a keynote speaker at the Paris Festival of Ideas in November 2017.