Connemara Doran

PhD, Harvard University

Historian of Science and Technology

Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)

Wedding Website for my marriage to Christian Swayngim at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Upper Arlington, OH

Publications

Research Articles:

“Air Force Origins of Scientific Instruments and Space Technology for Visualizing the Cosmic Microwave Background,” in Astronomy and Philosophy: Conceptual and Methodological Foundations and Challenges, Steven J. Dick, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026).

“Robert Vessot’s Gravity Probe A: Perfect a hammer, and the world looks like a nail,” chapter co-authored with David DeVorkin, in Testing Einstein: One Hundred Years of Experimental Relativity, Brian C. Odom and Daniel Kennefick, eds. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2026).

“How USAF Funding Shaped Laser-Atmosphere Modeling,” article co-authored with Arje Nachman, Optics & Photonics News (April 2026): 42-47.

“The Role of IUPAP in Shaping Metrological Practice: International Negotiation and Collaboration,” in Globalizing Physics: One Hundred Years of The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, Jaume Navarro and Roberto Lalli, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024).

“Instrumentalizing and Visualizing the Cosmic First Light,” Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science 36, 1 (April 2021): 167-192.

“Low-cost, High-risk Electricity and the Texas Polar Vortex,” IAEE Energy Forum (Fourth Quarter 2021): 48-51. 

“Poincaré’s mathematical creations in search of the ‘true relations of things’” in Ether and Modernity: The recalcitrance of an epistemic object in the early twentieth century, Jaume Navarro, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 45-66. 

“Poincaré’s Path to Uniformization,” in Uniformization, Riemann-Hilbert Correspondence, Calabi-Yau Manifolds, and Picard-Fuchs Equations, Lizhen Ji and Shing-Tung Yau, eds., Advanced Lectures in Mathematics 42 (Boston: International Press, 2018), 55-79.

Book Reviews:

“The Cosmic Microwave Background: Historical and Philosophical Lessons,” The British Journal for the History of Science (forthcoming 2026).

“Beyond Sputnik and the Space Race,” Nuncius 38, 1 (February 2023): 220-222.

“The Search for Dark Energy,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 51, 4 (Nov. 2020): 483-485.