About the AuthorsSETI Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Silicon Valley, where he is
now the director of Interstellar Message Composition. He is also a professor in the
Department of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
He is the editor of several forthcoming volumes, including Between Worlds: The
Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition; Ecofeminism and Rhetoric: Critical
Perspectives on Sex, Technology, and Discourse; and (with Albert A. Harrison)
Civilizations beyond Earth: Extraterrestrial Life and Society.
Vakoch is chair of the International Academy of Astronautics’ Study Groups
on Interstellar Message Construction and Active SETI, and as a member of the
International Institute of Space Law, he examines policy issues related to interstellar
communication. He may be reached at [email protected], telephone 650-960-4514, or
at the Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, 189 Bernardo Avenue, Suite 100,
Mountain View, CA 94043; or at [email protected], telephone 415-575-6244, or at
the Department of Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453
Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.
Harvey Wichman received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from California State
University, Long Beach, and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Claremont
Graduate University. He was a member of the founding faculties of both Delta College
in Michigan and California State University in San Bernardino. He is professor emer-
itus at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and Claremont Graduate University.
Trained in both neuroscience and social psychology, he is a graduate of NASA’s
Biospace Technology Training Program at Wallops Island, Virginia. He conducts
research on the effects of working and living in extreme environments. As a Fellow
of the American Council on Education, he spent a year at the National Institutes of
Health. As a Sloan Foundation Fellow, he spent a year designing the International
Space Station with the team at Rockwell International in Downey, California, fol-
lowing which he served as a Faculty Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. He is the author of the book Human Factors in the Design of
Spacecraft, and he has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, Space Life Sciences, Human Factors, and Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine. As director of CMC’s Aerospace Psychology Laboratory, he
has conducted space research involving designing passenger compartments for civil-
ian spaceflight on reusable McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (now Boeing Aerospace)