Neil DeGrasse Tyson
October 5, 1958
Influencer, Astrophysics, Physical Cosmology, Science Communication
Neil is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science communicator. His influence is from various other breakthrough leaders which are Isaac Newton, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. Born on October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a Research Associate in the department since 2003. Tyson lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife, Alice Young. They have two children: Miranda and Travis. Tyson met his wife in a Physics class at the University of Texas at Austin and wed in 1988.
He completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics at Harvard University in 1980. After receiving a master’s degree in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, he earned his master’s (1989) and doctorate (1991) in astrophysics at Columbia University. For the next three years, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. In 1994 he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a Staff Scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became Director of the Planetarium and oversaw its $210-million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. In 2001, US President George W. Bush appointed Tyson to serve on the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry and in 2004 to serve on the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, the latter better known as the “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” commission. Soon afterward, he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by NASA. In 2007 he received the Klopsteg Memorial Award for Adventures in Science Literacy .The U.S. National Academy of Sciences awarded Tyson the Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his “extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science”.
From 2006 to 2011, he hosted the television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS. Since 2009, Tyson hosted the weekly podcast StarTalk. A spin-off, also called StarTalk, began airing on National Geographic in 2015 and all is still airing today. In 2014, he hosted the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a successor to Carl Sagan’s 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences awarded Tyson the Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his “extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science.
He is a true visionary with a passion for the world of science which led him to overcome every obstacle of race that led him to be one of the most respected knowledgeable scientist leaders in history. He opened the road even wider, build the bridges where they were demolished by speaking openly about the issue of race and education, so other minorities can enter the field of science and become successful leaders with the best knowledge and integrity for the better of science and the world.
This statement is powerful by Holbrook I had to include this:”Holbrook begins with some startling statistics: since 1955, only forty African-Americans have earned doctorates in astronomy or physics doing an astronomy dissertation. This means they comprise at most 2.47% of PhDs in astronomy. Out of 594 faculty at top 40 astronomy programs, 6 are African-American (1%). Notably, Hispanics fare no better, with 7 (1.2%), while Asians account for 42 of the 594, for 7.1%.”
Recommended Books:
Merlin’s Tour of the Universe
Universe Down to Earth
Just Visiting This Planet (1998
One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (2000).
Cosmic Horizons: Astronomy at the Cutting Edge (2000).
City of Stars: A New Yorker’s Guide to the Cosmos (2002)
My Favorite Universe (a 12-part lecture series) (2003).
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution (co-authored with Donald Goldsmith)
The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (2004 / softcover reprinted in 2014 with a new cover reflecting Tyson’s status as host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries(2007 / softcover reprinted in 2014 with a new cover reflecting Tyson’s status as host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey).
The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet (2009 / softcover reprinted in 2014 with a new cover reflecting Tyson’s status as host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.
Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (2012 / softcover reprinted in 2014 with a new cover reflecting Tyson’s status as host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.