Afrofuturist Writer Sheree Renée Thomas

I Felt Like I Was Going to See an Alien at Any Moment

Sheree Renée Thomas is a Memphis-based fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, and the genius of the Mississippi Delta. Among other works, she wrote the fiction collection Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, and edited the World Fantasy Award-winning anthologies Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. Before the Zócalo/Experience ASU event “How Should We Prepare for the Aliens to Arrive on Earth?,” she sat down in our green …

ASU Astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

ASU Astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker

We Live on a Really Amazing Planet

Sara Imari Walker is a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist who researches the origins of life, physics of life, and artificial life. Before joining the Zócalo/Experience ASU event “How Should We …

LIGO Hanford Observatory’s Corey Gray | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

LIGO Hanford Observatory’s Corey Gray

I’m Connected to the Milky Way Now

Corey Gray is the senior operations specialist of LIGO Hanford Observatory and part of the group of researchers that confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, marking a major discovery for …

tktk | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What Will First Contact Be Like?

Imagining the Alien Arrival Is a Creative Endeavor—One That Might Just Bring Humanity Together

An “ineffable sense of wonder” filled last night’s Zócalo event, “How Should We Prepare for Aliens to Arrive on Earth?,” an event produced as part of Experience ASU, a month-long …

Why Do We Want to Find Aliens? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Do We Want to Find Aliens?

Humanity’s Fascination with ‘Little Green Men’ Dares Us to Imagine What’s Out There

The most memorable taxi ride of my life occurred when I stepped into a cab driven by a man named John, back in 2016. We fell into a conversation about …

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Void Dwellers

Kethevane Cellard is a Paris-based artist who works primarily with ink drawing and wood. She is renowned for her monochrome, free-floating drawings and sculptures defined by the play of light …