Lukey Ellsberg

Lukey Ellsberg is an interdisciplinary scholar of the ongoing atomic age and PhD candidate in Religious Studies and History of Science/History of Medicine. Their dissertation uses archival materials from early American nuclear civil defense planning to rewrite narratives of strategic dependence on nuclear weapons.

As a 2023 Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies Fellow, Lukey examined the imagery and vocabulary of instructional materials produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration to educate the public about civil defense in the home. Their other research interests include political theories of reality, critical museum studies, and the history of the image.

Lukey graduated from Barnard College in 2016 with a BA in medical anthropology. They received an MA from Union Theological Seminary in 2020 for a thesis entitled, “Approaching the Bomb: Maps, Models, and Magical Thinking,” which catalogued the various techniques used by anti-nuclear scholars, artists, and activists to communicate the scale and effects of atomic warfare.

Lukey is a birder, a poet, and a multi-media artist, with professional work in film, traditional animation, textiles and embroidery, and installation and performance arts. They are a co-founder of Visible Poetry Project (https://www.visiblepoetryproject.com), a National Poetry Month initiative.