W. Patrick McCray (born 1967) is a historian at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. He researches, writes about, and teaches the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

and the

history of technology The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques and is one of the categories of world history. Technology can refer to methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and info ...

Life

McCray grew up in rural southwestern Pennsylvania and later attended graduate school at the University of Arizona where he completed a Ph.D. in 1996. He is the author or editor of several books on the history of science and technology; topics include the effects of technology on astronomical practice, the activities of amateur scientists during the Cold War, and the activities of scientists who promoted radical visions for the technological future. More recently, McCray has studied and written about the interactions between art and technology. A new book, called ''Making Art Work'', appeared in 2020 and documents interactions between engineers and artists from the 1960s to the present. Prior to this, in his 2013 book ''The Visioneers'', McCray presented the concept of "visioneer" as historical actor. As he defined it, the term is a portmanteau that refers to individuals (often with a science or engineering background) who imagined, designed, and built exploratory technologies. ''The Visioneers'' won the 2014 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Priz
Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize
from the

History of Science Society The History of Science Society (HSS) is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science. It was founded in 1924 by George Sarton, David Eugene Smith, and Lawrence Joseph Henderson, primarily to support the public ...

. In 2005, McCray co-founded the Center for Nanotechnology in Societ

with a grant from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

. Until 2016, he led a research group focusing on the

history of nanotechnology The history of nanotechnology traces the development of the concepts and experimental work falling under the broad category of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology is a relatively recent development in scientific research, the development of ...

. In 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

and, in 2013, of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

. In 2016 and 2017, McCray was a "Faculty Expert" and speaker for the World Economic Forum's meeting in

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Wayback Machine

Works

*''Glassmaking in Renaissance Venice'', 1999, Ashgate. *''Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambitions and the Promise of Technology'', 2004, Harvard University Press. *''Keep Watching the Skies: The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age'', 2008, Princeton University Press.

2012, Princeton University Press, . * ttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo23530252.html''Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture'' co-edited with David Kaiser, 2016, University of Chicago Press,
Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture''
2020, MIT Press.

References

External links

UCSB Home page

Google Scholar page

2016 Davos talk on "Industrial Revolutions"

2017 Davos panel on "Maintaining Innovation"

Archival collections

Patrick McCray research material for his book, Giant Telescopes, 1904-2003, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCray, W. Patrick 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Living people 1967 births University of California, Santa Barbara faculty American male non-fiction writers