Elleanor Anne Arroway born 25 August 1964 in De Pere Wisconsin preferes to be called Ellie. Mother Joanna died during complications during birth Father Theodore died of Myocardial Infarction Nov 10 1974 Graduated from high school 1979 Full scholarship MIT graduated Magna Cum Laude Doctoral work at Caltech in development of the Lanthanide doped ruby maser Offered teaching at Harvard (turned down) Worked at Arecibo on SETI but due to NSF funding problems had to find funding Was provided funding by Hadden Corporation and secured access to the VLA in New Mexico While there received the first contact from an interstellar civilisation Contact was in the form of a signal containing prime numbers, a retransmission of the opening event of the Berlin Olympics and the blueprints to a machine. The machine which was subsequently built carried Ellie on a journey that to local observers transpired in normal time. Ellie claims to have had an eighteen hour experience during which she was reunited with an intelligence with the appearance of her father. This led to a major investigation into a possible conspiracy of the Hadden corporation after which Ellie was acquitted. There was no evidence except for approximately 18 hours of noise. Likes to drink Earl Grey tea with no milk or sugar.