Jordan Bimm

(Residential Fellow, 2018-19)

Jordan Bimm

Residential Fellow

Putting Mars in a Jar: The Military Origin of Astrobiology

Video: Lecture, Feb. 8, 2019

Jordan Bimm is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Post-Doctoral Fellow at Princeton University. At the Linda Hall Library, he will research his current project, “Putting Mars in a Jar,” a history of early American astrobiology focusing on military life-on-Mars studies conducted in the early-to-mid-1950s.

Jordan grew up in Toronto, Canada, and received his PhD in Science & Technology Studies (STS) from York University in 2018. His dissertation, Anticipating the Astronaut, (awarded the 2014-2015 HSS/NASA Fellowship in the History of Space Science) explores the construction of the American astronaut in the military field of space medicine during the first decade of the Cold War. He is also the recipient of the 2013 Sacknoff Prize for Space History, and the 2016 Adams Center Prize for Cold War Military History. His research has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, Slate, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, El Mundo, The Toronto Star, and The Life Sciences Podcast.