Colleen Anderson is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the History Department at Harvard University. She studies the history of Germany, twentieth-century Europe, and the global Cold War. She holds a B.A. in History and Art History from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and an MLitt in Modern European History from the University of St Andrews (Scotland). Her dissertation is a social and cultural history of outer space in East and West Germany from 1949 to 1990. It uses perceptions and presentations of space among scientists, politicians, science fiction authors, and amateur enthusiasts to explore changing notions of the cosmos within both German states. In so doing, her dissertation asks new questions about society and culture in the FRG and GDR, about East and West Germany’s international roles, and about Germans’ perceptions of the world around them. In the academic year 2014/2015 Anderson's research will be funded by the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at the FU, and she will be a visiting scholar at the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars."