Ellie Arroway
E11611
Ellie Arroway is a brilliant and determined radio astronomer who becomes the central figure in humanity’s first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial intelligence in Carl Sagan’s science fiction story "Contact."
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Ellie Arroway canonical | 8 |
| Dr. Eleanor Arroway | 3 |
| Eleanor Arroway | 2 |
| Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T56051 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ellie Arroway Context triple: [Contact, mainCharacter, Ellie Arroway]
-
A.
Ann Druyan
Ann Druyan is an American writer and producer best known for co-writing the original "Cosmos" television series and continuing Carl Sagan’s legacy in popularizing science and astronomy.
-
B.
Dorion Sagan
Dorion Sagan is an American science writer and essayist known for his works on evolution, ecology, and complexity, and for coauthoring influential books with his mother, biologist Lynn Margulis.
-
C.
Ann Dunham
Ann Dunham was an American anthropologist and development specialist best known as the mother of U.S. President Barack Obama.
-
D.
Nick Sagan
Nick Sagan is an American science fiction writer and screenwriter, known for his work on television series like Star Trek and for being the son of astronomer Carl Sagan.
-
E.
Linda Salzman Sagan
Linda Salzman Sagan is an American artist and writer best known for co-designing the Pioneer plaque and contributing to other interstellar message projects alongside Carl Sagan.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ellie Arroway Target entity description: Ellie Arroway is a brilliant and determined radio astronomer who becomes the central figure in humanity’s first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial intelligence in Carl Sagan’s science fiction story "Contact."
-
A.
Ann Druyan
Ann Druyan is an American writer and producer best known for co-writing the original "Cosmos" television series and continuing Carl Sagan’s legacy in popularizing science and astronomy.
-
B.
Dorion Sagan
Dorion Sagan is an American science writer and essayist known for his works on evolution, ecology, and complexity, and for coauthoring influential books with his mother, biologist Lynn Margulis.
-
C.
Ann Dunham
Ann Dunham was an American anthropologist and development specialist best known as the mother of U.S. President Barack Obama.
-
D.
Nick Sagan
Nick Sagan is an American science fiction writer and screenwriter, known for his work on television series like Star Trek and for being the son of astronomer Carl Sagan.
-
E.
Linda Salzman Sagan
Linda Salzman Sagan is an American artist and writer best known for co-designing the Pioneer plaque and contributing to other interstellar message projects alongside Carl Sagan.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (30)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
radio astronomer ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Contact ⓘ |
| appearsInMedium | novel ⓘ |
| basedOn | scientific ideas of Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| creator | Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| education | PhD in astronomy ⓘ |
| fictionalUniverse | Contact universe ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
SETI
ⓘ
radio astronomy ⓘ |
| fullName |
Ellie Arroway
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Eleanor Arroway
|
| gender | female ⓘ |
| genreOfWorkAppearedIn | science fiction ⓘ |
| givenName | Eleanor ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| mediumOfOrigin | literature ⓘ |
| narrativeRole | protagonist of Contact ⓘ |
| nickname |
Nell
ⓘ
surface form:
Ellie
|
| notableEvent | first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial intelligence ⓘ |
| notableWork | Project to detect extraterrestrial intelligence ⓘ |
| occupation | radio astronomer ⓘ |
| position | director of a SETI project ⓘ |
| role | central figure in humanity’s first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial intelligence ⓘ |
| specialization |
radio signal analysis
ⓘ
search for extraterrestrial intelligence ⓘ |
| theme |
humanity’s place in the universe
ⓘ
science and faith ⓘ |
| trait |
brilliant
ⓘ
determined ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ellie Arroway Description of subject: Ellie Arroway is a brilliant and determined radio astronomer who becomes the central figure in humanity’s first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial intelligence in Carl Sagan’s science fiction story "Contact."
Referenced by (14)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Eleanor Arroway
this entity surface form:
Eleanor Arroway
this entity surface form:
Dr. Eleanor Arroway
this entity surface form:
Dr. Eleanor Arroway
this entity surface form:
Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway
subject surface form:
Contact (1997 film)
this entity surface form:
Dr. Eleanor Arroway