The American Writers Museum and Adler Planetarium have teamed up to bring you two of your favorite things in one event: BOOKS & SPACE!
Join us in welcoming National Geographic Fellow and TED Prize winner Sarah Parcak, author of Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past. Parcak will be joined by Adler astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz to discuss the book and how we view ourselves from the ground and the stars. Books will be sold and signed at the event.
About ARCHAEOLOGY FROM SPACE:
Dr. Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field’s biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world’s ancient treasures.
Parcak has worked in twelve countries and four continents, using multispectral and high-resolution satellite imagery to identify thousands of previously unknown settlements, roads, fortresses, palaces, tombs, and even potential pyramids. From there, her stories take us back in time and across borders, into the day-to-day lives of ancient humans whose traits and genes we share. And she shows us that if we heed the lessons of the past, we can shape a vibrant future.
SARAH PARCAK is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, CEO of Globalxplorer, and Director of the Joint Mission to Lisht (Egypt). Her remote sensing work has been the focus of three BBC specials covering Egypt, ancient Rome, and the Vikings. She is a Fellow in the Society of Antiquaries, a 2014 TED Senior Fellow, the winner of the 2016 TED Prize, and a National Geographic Fellow.
LUCIANNE WALKOWICZ, PhD, is the Baruch S. Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress, and an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. She studies the ethics of Mars exploration, stellar magnetic activity, how stars influence a planet’s suitability as a host for alien life, and how to use advanced computing to discover unusual events in large astronomical data sets. Walkowicz is the founding director of the new LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, an initiative to provide astronomy graduate students with training in advanced computing, and coordinates the community of science collaborations for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Walkowicz holds a BS in Physics and Astronomy from Johns Hopkins University, and an MS and PhD in Astronomy from the University of Washington. Walkowicz is also a TED Senior Fellow and a practicing artist, working in a variety of media, from oil paint to sound.
