Tom Everrett, PhD

Biography

Tom Everrett (he/il) is curator of Ingenium’s communications collection, which includes artifacts related to the history of telegraphy, telephony, radio, printing, photography, cinema, television, sound reproduction, and music. His main research focus is the history of sound technology, with a special interest in lesser known and underappreciated technological innovations—and resistances. He is currently leading an Ingenium-wide project called Sound artifacts, which brings together curators, conservators, academics, students, fellows, and community members sharing a similar interest in the material cultures of sound and listening.

Tom is presently researching the history of hydrophone (underwater microphone) technology, specifically in relation to developments in marine acoustic ecology, ocean wildlife conservation and environmental activism in Canada since 1970. He is also leading a team building the first full-scale, playable reconstruction of the world’s oldest surviving music synthesizer. Previously, he led a project to reconstruct a macabre 19th-century scientific instrument, which played a key role in Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone. That project received the 2020 Canadian Museums Association award for research in the science sector. Tom also co-edits, with collaborators in Berlin, New York, and Ottawa, Sound and science—an international database for sources on the history of acoustics. He curated the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s permanent Sound by Design and Wearable Tech exhibitions, and is an adjunct professor in curatorial studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.

He is currently the facilitator of the postdoctoral fellowship in electronic music history.