David A. Weintraub

David Weintraub received his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Astronomy at Yale in 1980 and his PhD in Geophysics & Space Physics at UCLA in 1989. He is a Professor of Astronomy at Vanderbilt University and is the 2015 winner of the Klopsteg Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers, which recognizes the outstanding communication of the excitement of contemporary physics to the general public. His books include Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It? (Springer, 2014), How Old is the Universe? (Princeton University Press, 2010), and Is Pluto a Planet? (Princeton University Press, 2006), as well as Life on Mars (Princeton, 2018), featured in his Rorotoko interview. He has also authored over 70 peer-reviewed papers in professional journals and co-written seven astronomy books for children.