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I am an astronomer who teaches at Foothill College south of San Francisco, California and works as a senior educator at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. I am the co-author of an introductory textbook on astronomy for nonscience majors, two collections (published in the 1980's) of science and science fiction, several books for astronomy instructors, and, most recently, a children's book, called "Disney's Wonderful World of Space".

I was the founder of a program called Project ASTRO, that links volunteer astronomers with local 4th - 9th grade teachers and trains them to do hands-on astronomy projects in the classroom. It now has 13 regional sites around the country and can be found by going to the education web pages of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific:
http://www.astrosociety.org

Another project called Family ASTRO, has created kits, games, and training for families that want to do fun astronomy projects together.

In addition to teaching astronomy and physics, I occasionally appear on local and national radio, explaining astronomical developments in everyday language. The International Astronomical Union has named asteroid 4859 Asteroid Fraknoi, in recognition of my decades of work in astronomy outreach. (I was really tickled by that -- but want to assure everyone that Asteroid Fraknoi is very well behaved, stays in a nice orbit between Jupiter and Mars, and poses no threat to the Earth.)

I am an astronomer who teaches at Foothill College south of San Francisco, California and works as a senior educator at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. I am the co-author of an introductory textbook on astronomy for nonscience majors, two collections (published in the 1980's) of science and science fiction, several books for astronomy instructors, and, most recently, a children's book, ... More