McCray, W. Patrick

W. Patrick McCray (born 1967) is a historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He researches, writes about, and teaches the history of science and the history of technology.

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 Prize Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize from the History of Science Society.

In 2005, McCray co-founded the Center for Nanotechnology in Society with a grant from the National Science Foundation. Until 2016, he led a research group focusing on the history of nanotechnology. In 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, in 2013, of the American Physical Society. In 2016 and 2017, McCray was a "Faculty Expert" and speaker for the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland.Archived a
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In 2025-2026, McCray will be the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress.

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.

''The Visioneers. How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future''
2012, Princeton University Press, .


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.

'' Greedy Science: Creating Knowledge, Making Money and Being Famous in the 1980s''
co-edited with Michael D. Gordin, 2025, Johns Hopkins University 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