100 Years of Planetaria

Matthew McMahon is the Museum Collections Officer for the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium as well as a PhD Candidate studying at Queen's University Belfast. He specialises in the study of Irish Astronomical Instruments, and the historical geographies of planetaria.

Dr. Pedro M. P. Raposo is the Martha Hamilton and I. Wistar Morris III Executive Director of Library and Archives at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. He was formerly Curator and Director of Collections at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, where he was responsible for Adler's world-class collections of astronomical instruments, prints, and rare books. Raposo holds a doctorate in the history of science from the University of Oxford, where his doctoral project on the Lisbon Observatory in the context of nineteenth century astronomy was distinguished with the Magellan Prize in 2007. He has published on topics such as the history of nineteenth-century observatories, astronomy and empire, the history of modern planetaria, the circulation of knowledge in eighteenth-century Europe, and the concept of discovery in astronomy. Raposo has acted as content expert and curator for several exhibitions, including 'What is a Planet?', which was awarded the First Prize in the 2016 Great Exhibitions competition of the British Society for the History of Science.

Mike Smail is Senior Director of Theaters & Visualization at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, where he leads a team that handles all aspects of Adler's two dome theaters, as well as in-museum digital content. Smail is currently Treasurer of the International Planetarium Society, and the President-Elect of the Great Lakes Planetarium Association. He has a keen interest in the history of planetaria, namely with regard to opto-mechanical planetarium projectors, and in depictions of astronomical imagery and concepts in popular media.

Dr. Katie Boyce-Jacino is the Curator and Director of Collections at the Adler Planetarium, where she oversees a rich collection of historical scientific instruments and rare books. Prior to the Adler, she was an Assistant Teaching Professor at Barrett, the Honors College of Arizona State University, where she taught courses in cultural history and the history of technology. Boyce-Jacino received her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University, with a dissertation on the cultural history of planetaria in interwar Germany. She has previously been a fellow at the National Air and Space Institute, the American Institute of Physics, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the Freie Universität Berlin.