Critically-acclaimed science fiction author Kathleen Ann Goonan will join the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture faculty as a visiting professor for the 2010-2011 academic year. A major voice in the field of contemporary science fiction, Goonan’s presence reinforces Georgia Tech’s growing strength as a hub for cutting-edge science-fiction research.

“I am delighted to accept the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture's unique opportunity to join students in exploring the leading edge of emergent technologies as seen through the lenses of literature, public policy, engineering, science, and media," said Goonan. "Georgia Tech's confluence of emergent technologies, international presence, and gifted students will shape some of the world's most informed and influential scientists, engineers, policy-makers, and interpreters of our increasingly global culture in the decades to come, and I am honored to be a part of the Ivan Allen College's prescient initiative in this mission.”

In 1994 the New York Times designated her first novel, Queen City Jazz, a Notable Book of the Year. Since then, Goonan’s stories have been nominated for eminent science fiction prizes including the Nebula, British Science Fiction, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. In 2008 her most recent book, In War Times, won both the John W. Campbell and American Literary Association Awards for best science fiction novel of the year, beating out stiff competition including William Gibson’s Spook Country and Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

Critics and scholars outside the science fiction community regularly recognize Goonan’s ability to extrapolate startling—and startlingly poetic—new futures from current science and technologies as well. In 2001, Scientific American praised her as a “shaman of the small” for her expertise in nanotechnology, and that same year she was invited to speak at the Library of Congress about “the biological century and the future of science fiction.” In 2004, Goonan delivered keynote speeches on nanotechnology and literary vision at the University of South Carolina, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Idaho Academy of Sciences. In 2006 her essay, “Consciousness, Literature, and Science Fiction,” appeared on the Iowa Review web site, and in 2007 she was invited to join the Sigma Science Fiction Think Tank, which does futurism consulting for the U.S. Government and appropriate NGOs. Ms. Goonan will teach a variety of courses during her time at Tech including the history of science fiction and creative writing.