Rate My Professor W. Patrick McCray

W. Patrick McCray is a Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he joined the faculty in 2003 as Assistant Professor, became Associate Professor in 2005, and advanced to full Professor. He earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering with a minor in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1996, along with an M.S. in 1991 and a B.S. in 1989, both in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. McCray holds affiliate appointments in UCSB's Global Studies Program and Media Arts and Technology Program. His career features distinguished visiting roles, including the Lindbergh Chair at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (2015-2016), Eleanor Searle Visiting Professor of History of Science at the California Institute of Technology (2011-2012), and the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress (2025-2026). He served as Co-Principal Investigator for UCSB’s Center for Nanotechnology in Society from 2006 to 2016, supported by a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation, and previously held positions as Associate Historian at the American Institute of Physics (2000-2003) and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Arizona (1997-1999).

McCray's research and teaching center on the histories of science, technology, and the environment after 1945, primarily in the United States, encompassing the intersections of art, technology, and science; histories of computing; space exploration, astronomy, and environmental concerns around habitability; and mountain cultures related to outdoor recreation and natural history in the western United States from 1850 to 1950. He has authored key books such as README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture (MIT Press, 2020), The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future (Princeton University Press, 2013), Keep Watching the Skies! The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age (Princeton University Press, 2008), and Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambitions and the Promise of Technology (Harvard University Press, 2004). His co-edited works include Greedy Science: Creating Knowledge, Making Money, and Being Famous in the 1980s (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025) and Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and the American Counterculture (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Among his honors are the 2014 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize from the History of Science Society for The Visioneers, the 2012 Eugene E. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature, election as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011), and Fellow of the American Physical Society (2013). McCray co-edits two book series for Johns Hopkins University Press, serves on the editorial board of Technology and Culture, and delivered invited talks at the World Economic Forum in 2016 and 2017.