Christopher Sloan is an award-winning author and art director who specializes in bringing non-visual scientific research to life for diverse audiences. Mr. Sloan worked with National Geographic Magazine from 1992 to 2010 as Art Director, Senior Editor, and Director of Mission Projects. During this time he led the magazine’s visualization efforts into the digital age through the use of 3D scanning, modeling, and animation. Mr. Sloan also has extensive experience creating and executing brands and identities for organizations.
Mr. Sloan proposed and played a key role in the successful execution in the magazine as well as in corollary television shows of many popular National Geographic Magazine cover stories, such as Dawn of Humans, Neanderthals, Evolution of Mammals, Sea Monsters, Rise and Fall of the Maya, Bizarre Dinosaurs, and Secrets of Stonehenge.
Mr. Sloan works directly with scholars and governments all over the world. As the Director of Mission Projects he played a key role in allocating National Geographic funds to support research world-wide, at times participating directly in fieldwork. While on a dig in remote western China, Mr. Sloan discovered a new genus of prehistoric crocodile, Jungaarsuchus sloanii, that now bears his name. In 2007, Mr. Sloan led an editorial team on a 2,500 mile roadtrip through Iran which resulted in a cover story on ancient Iran.
Mr. Sloan has written two feature articles for National Geographic magazine, including Feathers for T. rex and Found: Earliest Child, the November 2006 cover story about the discovery of a 3.3 million-year-old baby human ancestor in Ethiopia. His enthusiasm for communicating about science to a broad audience extends to popular literature and children’s books. What Does it Mean to be Human? (2010), co-authored with Dr. Rick Potts, is a companion book to the popular new Human Origins hall of Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Mr. Sloan also has written seven award-winning children’s books for the National Geographic Society including Mummies (2010), How Dinosaurs Took Flight (2005), and The Human Story (2004). His contributions to books on art, information design, and science include The Art of National Geographic (1999) and Inside/Out: The Diagrams of National Geographic (1998).
As a science communicator, Mr. Sloan enjoys lecturing on visualizing science. He has made a number of television and radio appearances in connection with National Geographic articles. Currently, he serves on the board of advisors of the Exposé Computer Graphics Illustration Annual and as chairman of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Lanzendorf Paleoart Committee. Mr. Sloan teaches courses on art and science visualization for the Art Academy University in San Francisco.
