Michael Strauss is a professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. He was an undergraduate and graduate student at Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at Caltech and Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study before joining the faculty at the university in 1995. He is an observational astronomer, using telescopes both on the ground and in space to map the sky. He is known for his discoveries and studies of distant quasars and the three-dimensional distribution of galaxies in the universe. He has taught at all levels, from introductory astronomy for non-scientists to cosmology for graduate students.

THE LATEST BOOK

I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and servant of those who are insatiably curious. My latest book "Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization" contains the deepest ideas and thoughts that I've ever put to page. But maybe that's for you to decide. The book offers a view "from above" that is unapologetically scientifically literate while addressing topics such as mind & body, conflict & resolution, law & order, gender & identity, color & race, life & death. Often, the most divisive issues in society simply evaporate when you see them embedded in a larger world-view. Starry Messenger is an offering to civilization, to help it find the guide star it lost long ago.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born in New York City the same week NASA was founded. His interest in the universe traces back to age 9, after a first visit to the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. He was educated in the public schools of New York City through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. And after an BA in Physics from Harvard and a PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia and a Postdoctoral research fellowship at Princeton, Tyson became the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, where he has served since 1996.

J. Richard Gott is noted for his contributions to cosmology and general relativity. He has received the Robert J. Trumpler Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Astronomical League Award, and Princeton's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was for many years Chair of the Judges for the Westinghouse and Intel Science Talent Search.

His paper “On the Infall of Matter into Clusters of Galaxies and Some Effects on Their Evolution” co-authored with Jim Gunn has received over 1500 citations. He proposed that the clustering pattern of galaxies in the universe should be spongelike--a prediction now confirmed by numerous surveys. He discovered exact solutions to Einstein's field equations for the gravitational field around one cosmic string (in 1985) and two moving cosmic strings (in 1991). This second solution has been of particular interest because, if the strings move fast enough, at nearly the speed of light, time travel to the past can occur. His paper with Li-Xin Li, “Can the Universe Create Itself?” explores the idea of how the laws of physics may permit the universe to be its own mother. His book "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" was selected by Booklist as one of four “Editors’ Choice” science books for 2001. He has published papers on map projections in Cartographica.

His picture has appeared in Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times. He wrote an article on time travel for Time magazine as part of its cover story on the future (April 10, 2000). His and Mario Juric’s Map of the Universe appeared in the New York Times (January 13, 2004), New Scientist, and Astronomy. Gott and Juric are in Guinness World Records 2006 and 2011 for finding the largest structure in the universe: the Sloan Great Wall of Galaxies (1.37 billion light years long). Gott’s Copernican argument for space colonization was the subject of an article in the New York Times (July 17, 2007).