Chancellor Jackman Graduate Fellow
Bree Lohman is a PhD Candidate specializing in the history of technology, computing, and the environment in Cold War North America. At the University of Toronto, she is based at the Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Her dissertation explores the emergence, maintenance, and decline of the SAGE nuclear defense infrastructure in Canada and the United States. Bree holds an M.A. from Columbia University and an M.Sc. from London School of Economics, both in the field of history. She has worked with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC), the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA), the Living Computers: Museum + Labs (Seattle, WA), and the IEEE History Center (Piscataway,NJ). She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Ingenium Museums of Science and Innovation, as well as a Junior Fellow at Massey College
Fellowship Research Project—The Ends of the World: An Environmental History of Nuclear Defense Infrastructure
I am conducting a historical reevaluation of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE, early warning and air defense infrastructure during its construction, use, and obsolescence. From 1957 to 1983, SAGE monitored North American airspace to ostensibly safeguard against nuclear attack as part of the first generation of computerized nuclear surveillance. For my dissertation, I undertake a microhistorical investigation of this macroscale project, investigating the uneven distributions of nuclear risk and investment across Cold War North America through a study of how communities negotiated, contested, and enacted nuclear security in their everyday lives.