Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. In 2017 he became the first American to win the prestigious Stephen Hawking Medal for science communication. He is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. From 2006 to 2011 he hosted the educational science television show
NOVA ScienceNow on PBS, and in March 2014 he became host of the television series
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, an update of Carl Sagan’s
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Tyson has written several
New York Times bestselling nonfiction books.
Robert M. Hazen is the author of more than 350 articles and 20 books on earth science, materials science, origins of life, history and music. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he received the Mineralogical Society of America Award, the Ipatief Prize, the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, and other awards for his research and writing. Hazen is a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science and is Robinson Professor of Earth Sciences at George Mason University. His recent books include
Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins and
The Sciences: An Integrated Approach (with James Trefil).
Lauren Fortgang, a graduate of Fordham University’s Theater Program, is an actress, costume designer, and narrator. She has recorded everything from video games to textbooks. Her audiobook narrations have earned AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed her as a finalist for an Audie Award in 2014.