Self-Portrait

I have spent my entire professional life writing, including two years as a staff reporter in the Science News department of The New York Times.

New York City born and raised, I grew up within walking distance of the Bronx Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, and attended the Bronx High School of Science (class of 1964). I was a lost soul in college (several changes of majors at three different schools). Fortunately for me, no one around me thought it odd or ill-fated for a girl to be interested in science.

Working freelance for a variety of magazines kept me busily employed until the publication of Longitude in 1995—and its unexpected success—allowed me to write books that require years of research. (I should add that I enjoy that part.)

• Most unforgettable assignment: 25 days (and nights) as a research subject in a “chronophysiology” laboratory at Montefiore Hospital, where the boarded up windows and specially trained technicians kept me from knowing whether it was day outside or night.

• Cushiest assignment: as public relations liaison for the filming of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” TV series, I spent a month on site with the crew in Italy and Greece.

• Most surprising placement: finding myself the only non-scientist on the Planet Definition Committee of the International Astronomical Union. (We favored keeping Pluto a planet, but our recommendations were rejected.)

• Favorite compliment: The British magazine New Scientist said of Longitude, “Ms. Sobel has apparently done the impossible and made horology sexy.”

• Out of this world: An asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter has been named 30935davasobel.

Bio-Sketch

Dava Sobel is the author of Longitude (Walker 1995, Bloomsbury 2005), Galileo’s Daughter (Walker 1999 and 2011), The Planets (Viking 2005, Penguin 2006), A More Perfect Heaven (Walker/Bloomsbury 2011 and 2012), And the Sun Stood Still (Bloomsbury 2016), The Glass Universe (Viking 2016, Penguin 2017) and The Elements of Marie Curie (Grove/Atlantic 2024). She has also co-authored six books, including Is Anyone Out There? with astronomer Frank Drake, and currently edits the “Meter” poetry column in Scientific American.

AWARDS:

2001 Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board “for fostering awareness of science and technology among broad segments of the general public.”

2001 Bradford Washburn Award from the Boston Museum of Science for her “outstanding contribution toward public understanding of science, appreciation of its fascination, and the vital roles it plays in all our lives.”

2004 Harrison Medal from the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London, in recognition of her contribution to increasing awareness of the science of horology by the general public.

2008 Klumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for “increasing the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.”

2014 Cultural Award from the Eduard Rhein Foundation of Germany “for using her profound scientific knowledge and literary talent to combine facts with fiction by merging scientific adventures and human stories in order to give the history of science a human face.”

 TEACHING:

2006: University of Chicago, as the Robert Vare Nonfiction Writer-in-Residence

2013 – 2016: Smith College, as the Joan Leiman Jacobson Visiting Nonfiction Writer.