Ann C Thresher

Ann C Thresher is a professor at Northeastern University where she is cross listed in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and the School of Public Policy.

She has a BA in philosophy, and a BSc in physics from Sydney University, as well as a Ph.D. in philosophy from UC San Diego, where she worked on the philosophy of science and environmental ethics. After finishing her degree, Thresher spent two years at Stanford as a postdoc working with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and the Stanford-Doerr School for Sustainability, where she sought to bridge the divide between ethics and environmental science.

Her current research centers on the environmental and social impact of the new space age, with a particular focus on space infrastructure. As part of this work, Thresher is a project lead at the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope, where she leads their Responsible Siting efforts, and is chair of Commission C5's Culturally Sensitive Sites Project Group for the International Astronomical Union. She is also an affiliate at the Harvard Black Hole Initiative, working extensively with interdisciplinary groups on ways to make space science and industry more ethical. Beyond space, Thresher’s other work includes her book, The Tangle of Science: Reliability Beyond Rigour, Objectivity, and the Scientific Method, and publications on the ethics of emerging genetic tools for conservation. She is particularly interested in the ways that new technology can help, and hinder, environmental recovery, as well as how to motivate action on the environmental crisis.