Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx, the son of Cyril deGrasse Tyson, a sociologist who served as a human resources commissioner under Mayor John Lindsay. At nine, a visit to the Hayden Planetarium's sky show fixed his direction so firmly that he later said it left him no choice in the matter. He captained the wrestling team and edited the science journal at the Bronx High School of Science, and at seventeen received a personal letter from astronomer Carl Sagan, then at Cornell, inviting him to visit -- Tyson chose Harvard instead, but credited the visit with showing him the kind of person he wanted to become. He earned degrees at Harvard, Texas and Columbia, finishing his astrophysics doctorate in 1991.

Tyson joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist in 1994 and has directed it since 1996, overseeing a 210-million-dollar reconstruction completed in 2000. As director, he made the decision, ahead of the International Astronomical Union's formal 2006 vote, to classify Pluto with other small icy bodies rather than as a planet, a call that drew public backlash years before the IAU made it official. He hosted Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey in 2014, the sequel to Carl Sagan's original series, and has written more than a dozen popular science books, including Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017). He has received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal and numerous honorary doctorates, and remains one of the most recognized science communicators on American television, radio and podcasting.

In late 2018, four women came forward with allegations against Tyson spanning three decades: one accused him of rape in 1984, and three others described inappropriate touching or comments between 2009 and 2018. Tyson denied the rape allegation and said the other incidents, which he acknowledged occurred, had been misinterpreted. Fox, National Geographic and the American Museum of Natural History each opened investigations. All concluded by mid-2019 without findings that ended his employment, his shows resumed, and the museum confirmed in July 2019 that he would remain planetarium director. The allegations left a permanent asterisk on a public image built almost entirely on trustworthiness -- a science communicator whose authority rested on being believed, facing accusations that were investigated rather than adjudicated in open court.

Whether the 2018 allegations should weigh against Tyson's standing as American science's most visible public face is a question that has not settled, and reasonable people who follow the story closely land in different places on it. He has kept his position, kept his television and podcast platforms, and kept publishing at roughly the same pace as before 2018 -- none of the investigating institutions found grounds to remove him. Critics argue the outcome reflects institutional reluctance to discipline a marketable public figure more than genuine exoneration -- his defenders point to the investigations' conclusions. Both his scientific reputation and the unresolved 2018 allegations remain part of the same public record, and neither has displaced the other.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Death by Black Hole book
  Essay collection on astrophysics for general readers 2007
• Space Chronicles book
  Essays on space exploration policy 2012
• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey television
  Hosted the sequel series to Carl Sagan's Cosmos 2014
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry book
  Best-selling short introduction to astrophysics 2017
• Hayden Planetarium reconstruction building
  210-million-dollar rebuild he oversaw as director 2000

• 1967 aged ~9 First visits the Hayden Planetarium at age nine
• 1976 aged ~18 Graduates from the Bronx High School of Science
• 1991 aged ~33 Completes his Ph.D. in astrophysics at Columbia University
• 1996 aged ~38 Becomes director of the Hayden Planetarium
• 2006 aged ~48 His planetarium reclassification of Pluto anticipates the IAU's formal vote
• 2014 aged ~56 Hosts Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
• November 2018 aged 60 Faces four public allegations of sexual misconduct spanning three decades
• July 2019 aged 60 Retains his position as planetarium director after institutional investigations conclude

• Carl Sagan 1934–1996
  Astronomer and science communicator who brought cosmology to millions through Cosmos and popular books. mentor
• Edwin Hubble 1889–1953
  Astronomer whose discovery of expanding galaxies provided the foundation for the Big Bang theory. predecessor whose findings he popularizes
• Richard Feynman 1918–1988
  Theoretical physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics and his accessible teaching style. fellow science communicator
• Vera Rubin 1928–2016
  Measured galaxy rotation curves that provided the main observational evidence for dark matter. colleague in astrophysics