A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025
5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
St. Catherine University
Mendel Hall, Room 106
2004 Randolph Ave.
Saint Paul, Minnesota
This fall, St. Catherine University is hosting biologist and author, Dr. Kelly Weinersmith. Her research has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, BBC World, Science, Nature, and more
Kelly co-wrote the New York Times bestsellers Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve And/Or Ruin Everything and A City on Mars. In 2024, she and her coauthor and husband Zach received a Hugo Award and the Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize for A City on Mars.
From the book:
”Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away beckons — with no climate change, no war, no X — and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp.
“Or is it? My co-author and husband and I are sci-fi geeks who set out to write a book about the glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, we aren’t so sure it’s a good idea
“Get in, we’re going to Mars.”
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Dr. Kelly Weinersmith received her Ph.D. in Ecology at the University of California Davis, and is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences Department at Rice University.
Kelly studies parasites that manipulate the behavior of their hosts, and her research has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, BBC World, Science, and Nature.
When she isn’t studying nature’s creepiest wonders, Kelly is writing books with her husband, Zach Weinersmith. Their first book, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, was a New York Times Bestseller.
Zach Weinersmith is Kelly’s husband and coauthor of A City on Mars and the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. He illustrated the New York Times Bestselling Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration.
His work has been featured by The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Forbes, Science Friday, Foreign Policy, PBS, Boingboing, the Freakonomics Blog, the RadioLab blog, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones, CNN, Discovery Magazine, Nautilus and more.
Kelly and Zach live in Virginia with their children/coauthors.
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