Heather Preston IF

Heather Preston is an astronomer and filker, who writes songs on topics from space science/exploration to "overhyped press releases" to Greek mythology. Writing her first filk as an undergraduate at MIT, she has been a filker "off and on" for pretty much her whole life, but also studied piano, voice, Irish whistle, electric bass and bodhran, and has played/sung with bands from Irish trad to bluegrass to R&B/funk - even a reggae band for a little while! For a long time, physics, astronomy and astrophysics took up a lot of time she'd otherwise have spent on music. For the last ten years, she was a planetarium director in southwest Florida, but has now moved to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, on the oft-frozen shores of Lake Michigan. She is enjoying getting reacquainted with the strange phenomenon known as "having four seasons," and is stunned and honored and immensely grateful that one of her songs has touched enough people to be nominated.

• Interfilk Guest, OVFF 2024
• Hal Clement Science Speaker, Boskone 2025