Michael P. Oman-Reagan is a social scientist, artist, activist, and zen practitioner in the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism.
Oman-Reagan is a co-founder of The People’s Library, the library of the Occupy Wall Street social movement in New York City. He serves on the advisory boards for METI International and the Astrosociology Research Institute, is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics’ SETI Permanent Committee, and was a founding board member of the JustSpace Alliance (2018-20). He founded Wind Island Sangha, in British Columbia, Canada.
After completing B.A. degrees in four-field Anthropology and Religion he earned an M.A. degree and Ph.D. candidacy in Cultural Anthropology. His PhD research as a Vanier Scholar examined human relations with Earth and space through the search for life in astrobiology and SETI. Library Journal named him a Mover and Shaker in 2012.
He is an alumnus of AFS Intercultural Programs (Nykøbing Falster, Denmark), Reed College (biology and philosophy), Pacific Northwest College of Art (contemporary theory and printmaking), the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship at Universitas Negeri Malang (East Java, Indonesia), Hunter College of the City University of New York (Department of Anthropology B.A./M.A., Program in Religion B.A., and Thomas Hunter Honors Program B.A.), and Memorial University (P.h.D. candidacy, anthropology).
Research Areas: Space, Futures, the Interstellar, Astrobiology, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Speculative Fiction, Social Movements, Activism, Social Media, New Religions.
