Samantha Thompson

Dr. Samantha M. Thompson is a historian of science and technology whose work focuses on the history of astronomy and space sciences. As the Phoebe Waterman Haas Astronomy Curator, she is responsible for the Museum’s collection of telescopes, instruments, and other artifacts related to the study of the universe.

Thompson received a BA in Astrophysics and Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, an MSc in the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Imperial College London, and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from Arizona State University. She has held positions at the Center for the History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, the Lowell Observatory, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Thompson’s current book project, Electric Eyes: Astronomy’s (Failed) Electronic Revolution, explores the development of photoelectric imaging in astronomy, from the invention of the all-electronic television to the CCD. She leads a research project examining the history of astronomy in Hawai‘i and the Pacific.