Dr. Pamela L. Gay
Pamela L. Gay,
Ph.D. is an astronomer, writer, and podcaster focused on using new media
to engage people in science and technology.
Her most well
known project is
Astronomy Cast, a podcast she co-hosts with Fraser Cain
(Producer of
Universe Today). Each week, Pamela and Fraser work to take
their
listeners on a
facts-based journey through the cosmos that explores not only what we
know about the universe, but how we know it. They are now entering our
sixth year of production, and thanks to the constant new discoveries
coming out of the Space Science communities, they have no plans stop
recording any time soon.
Prior to working on
Astronomy Cast, Pamela and fellow Slackers Aaron
Price
and Travis Searle worked on Slacker Astronomy, the first podcast devoted
explicitly to astronomy. Slacker Astronomy was the reason for science
becoming a distinct genre in podcast directories. Launching in February
2005, Slacker Astronomy ran for over a year. Parodying everything from
the opening to ABC’s Monday Night Football and the theme to Green
Acres, Slacker Astronomy combined off-beat humor with hard-core science.
Off-air, they produced the first peer-reviewed papers on what it
takes to make a podcast and find out who is listening. (Astronomy Cast
and collaborators have followed up with three more papers.)
In addition to podcasting, she also works to communicate astronomy to
the
public through her
blog, through frequent public talks, and through
popular articles. Her writing has appeared in Astronomy,
Sky and
Telescope, and
Lightspeed magazines.
A public school kid through and through, Pamela earned her
B.S. in
Astrophysics from Michigan State University in 1996 and her Ph.D. in
Astronomy from the University of Texas in 2002. Today, she teaches at
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Although her first research
love was and remains variable stars (she even serves on the council of
the
American Association of Variable Star Astronomers), she has committed
scientific adultery more than once to steal moments for exploring the
secrets of galaxy evolution. Today, along with her astronomy science
research, she also focuses her efforts (the majority of her efforts
really) on
engaging the public in doing science through
CosmoQuest.
Watch
Dr. Pamela Gay — “Make the World Better (Ask if Anyone Minds
Later)” and
TAM Panel — Our Future in Space.
Watch her
YouTube channel.
View her
Facebook page and her
Flickr photostream.
Read her
her
LinkedIn profile,
her
NASA profile,
and her
Wikipedia profile.
Follow her Twitter feed.