the Graduate School
Confessions of a Dinosaur: Covering the Universe in the Age of the Internet and Disruption
Tues. April 17, 2018 7:30–9 p.m.
Kane Hall 120
New York Times Cosmic Affairs Correspondent Dennis Overbye brings observations from decades of science reporting to discuss why the search for facts matters in the internet-driven era of false news.
Admission is free.
Online registration for this event is closed, but a limited number of seats are available for walk-up guests. As a courtesy, the Graduate School will offer standby seating on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 6:45 pm in Kane Hall. Any reserved seats not taken by 7:15 pm will be offered to our guests in the standby line.
Produced in partnership with the University of Washington Graduate School.
Dennis Overbye is the cosmic affairs correspondent for the New York Times. His reporting can range from the mating habits of black holes and zero-gravity fashion shows to science in the movies, the status of Pluto and the fate of the universe.
He is the author of two books: “Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe” (HarperCollins, 1991), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction; and “Einstein in Love, A Scientific Romance” (Viking Penguin, 2000).
His account of the discovery of the Higgs boson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. His writing has also won awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Physics and the American Astronomical Society.
He was born in Seattle in 1944. He graduated from Mercer Island High School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a BS in physics in 1966. After a year of graduate school at UCLA he embarked on a career as a writer. He served as an assistant editor of Sky and Telescope magazine and a writer and senior editor of Discover magazine before joining the New York Times in 1998 as the deputy science editor.
He lives in New York City with his wife, Nancy Wartik, and their daughter, Mira. In his house Pluto is still a planet.
