Neil deGrasse Tyson

• 1. The Universe Called

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  Neil deGrasse Tyson was nine years old when he visited the sky theater of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. He grew up to be an American astrophysicist, author and science communicator, born on the 5th of October 1958. Looking back, he described the effect of that night sky this way: "so strong was that imprint of the night sky that I'm certain that I had no choice in the matter, that in fact, the universe called me." What does a person do with a calling like that? How does a boy from the Bronx answer it, and who helps him along the way? Why would a single decision about Pluto make him so many critics? And what happens to a public scientist's standing when serious accusations arrive? The answers run through classrooms, observatories, television studios and, eventually, a very public reckoning.

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• 2. Bronx Beginnings

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  Cyril deGrasse Tyson and Sunchita Maria Tyson raised their second child in a Catholic family in the Bronx, even though Neil himself was born in Manhattan. His father, who lived from 1927 to 2016, was a sociologist and a human resource commissioner for New York City mayor John Lindsay. He was also the first director of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited. His mother, born Sunchita Feliciano and of Puerto Rican descent, lived from 1928 to 2023 and worked as a gerontologist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Neil has two siblings, Stephen Joseph Tyson and Lynn Antipas Tyson.

  The middle name deGrasse comes from his paternal grandmother. She was born Altima de Grasse on Nevis, an island in the British West Indies.

  The family lived first in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx and later in Riverdale. Tyson attended public schools all the way through. They included PS 36 Unionport, PS 81 Robert J. Christen and the Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy, known as MS 141. In 1976 he graduated from The Bronx High School of Science, where he captained the wrestling team and served as editor-in-chief of the Physical Science Journal.

  During those high school years he took astronomy courses offered by the Hayden Planetarium. He called that time "the most formative period" of his life. The planetarium's director then, Mark Chartrand III, became what Tyson named his "first intellectual role model." Chartrand's enthusiastic, humorous teaching style pushed Tyson toward communicating the universe to others in the same spirit.

  At 14, Tyson won a scholarship from the Explorers Club of New York to watch the total solar eclipse of June 1973 from the SS Canberra. The scientific cruise carried two thousand scientists, engineers and enthusiasts. Among them were Neil Armstrong, Scott Carpenter and Isaac Asimov. By 15 he was giving lectures on astronomy and had gained some fame in astronomy circles.

  That reputation reached Carl Sagan, a faculty member at Cornell University, who tried to recruit him. In his book The Sky Is Not the Limit, Tyson recalled that his application letter had been "dripping with an interest in the universe." Without his knowledge, the admissions office forwarded it to Sagan, and within weeks a personal letter arrived.

  Tyson revisited the moment in the first episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. He pulled out Sagan's 1975 calendar and found the day Sagan had invited the 17-year-old to Ithaca. Sagan had even offered a bed for the night in case the bus back to the Bronx never came. Tyson said, "I already knew I wanted to become a scientist. But that afternoon, I learned from Carl the kind of person I wanted to become." Despite the courtship, Tyson chose a different school: Harvard.

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• 3. The Long Road to Doctorate

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  At Harvard, Tyson lived in Currier House and majored in physics. He rowed during his freshman year, then returned to wrestling and earned a varsity letter in his senior year. He also danced, in styles that included jazz, ballet, Afro-Caribbean and Latin Ballroom. In 1980 he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Harvard College.

  Graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin began next, and the Master of Arts in astronomy followed in 1983. Tyson has said he did not spend as much time in the research lab as he should have. His professors encouraged him to consider other careers, and the committee for his doctoral dissertation was dissolved. That ended his pursuit of a doctorate at Texas.

  Austin gave him something else, though. In a physics class there he met Alice Young. They married in 1988, and they later named their first child Miranda after the smallest of the five major moons of Uranus. Their second child is Travis, and the family lives in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.

  From 1986 to 1987 Tyson lectured in astronomy at the University of Maryland. In 1988 Columbia University accepted him into its astronomy graduate program. He earned a Master of Philosophy in astrophysics in 1989 and a PhD in astrophysics in 1991, supervised by Professor R. Michael Rich. Rich secured funding from NASA and the ARCS Foundation. That money sent Tyson to meetings in Italy, Switzerland, Chile and South Africa, and let him hire students to help with data reduction.

  In Chile, Tyson observed with the 0.91 meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The images he obtained there fed the Calán/Tololo Supernova Survey. That survey furthered the work of establishing Type Ia supernovae as standard candles. Tyson's research has since focused on observations in cosmology, stellar evolution, galactic astronomy, bulges and stellar formation.

  During his thesis work he also got to know Professor David Spergel of Princeton University. Spergel visited Columbia while collaborating with Tyson's advisor on the Galactic bulge typically found in spiral galaxies. From 1991 to 1994 Tyson was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton. In 1994 he took on a second post, back in New York.

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• 4. Director of the Hayden

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  In 1994, Tyson joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist while also serving at Princeton as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. He became acting director in June 1995 and was appointed director in 1996. His first major task was a $210 million reconstruction of the planetarium, finished in 2000. The rebuilt facility is the Rose Center for Earth and Space, part of the American Museum of Natural History.

  In 1997 Tyson founded the museum's Department of Astrophysics, and he has been a research associate in it since 2003. Asked what the directorship meant to him, he spoke of "this deep sense of duty." The scientists and educators who had invested in him as a child were the model, and he wanted to serve visitors the same way.

  He also took on national roles. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him to the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry. In 2004 came an appointment to the President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, better known as the Moon, Mars, and Beyond commission. Soon afterward he received the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor NASA bestows. At various points he served the Planetary Society as vice-president, president and chairman of the board.

  Pluto brought him a different kind of attention. Under Tyson, the Hayden stopped describing Pluto as the ninth planet in its exhibits. His reasoning was about commonalities. He grouped the terrestrial planets together, the gas giants together, and placed Pluto with similar objects, rather than simply counting planets.

  The decision produced a flood of hate mail, much of it from children. Tyson said so on The Colbert Report, The Daily Show and BBC Horizon. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union confirmed the assessment by reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.

  The argument had also played out online. On the Cambridge Conference Network, a widely read UK-based chat group, Benny Peiser renewed a call to reclassify Pluto, spurred by a New York Times article titled "Pluto's Not a Planet? Only in New York." Tyson later turned the saga into a book, The Pluto Files, published in 2009, and a NOVA episode of the same name in 2010.

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• 5. Voice and Screen

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  From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote a monthly "Universe" column for Natural History magazine. Some of those essays later appeared in his books Death by Black Hole, published in 2007, and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, published in 2017. In the same period he wrote a monthly column for StarDate magazine, answering reader questions about the universe under the pen name "Merlin." Material from it appeared in Merlin's Tour of the Universe and Just Visiting This Planet, published in 1989 and 1998.

  One of his Natural History columns coined a phrase that stuck. In a 2002 special edition called "City of Stars," Tyson popularized the word "Manhattanhenge." It describes the two days each year when the evening sun lines up with Manhattan's street grid, making the sunset visible down unobstructed side streets. He had invented the term in 1996, inspired by the sun's solstice alignment with Stonehenge in England.

  Television followed the page. In 2004 he hosted the four-part Origins miniseries of the PBS series Nova. With Donald Goldsmith he co-authored the companion volume, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution. He and Goldsmith worked together again on the documentary 400 Years of the Telescope, which premiered on PBS in April 2009. Between 2006 and 2011 he hosted the PBS show NOVA ScienceNow.

  In May 2009, Tyson launched StarTalk, a one-hour radio show co-hosted with comedian Lynne Koplitz. It aired on Sunday afternoons on KTLK AM in Los Angeles and WHFS in Washington DC. The show lasted thirteen weeks. It returned in December 2010, now co-hosted by comedians Chuck Nice and Leighann Lord. Guests have ranged from scientists to celebrities such as GZA, Wil Wheaton, Sarah Silverman and Bill Maher.

  StarTalk kept changing platforms. In 2012 Tyson announced a YouTube series based on it, distributed for a while on the Nerdist channel before StarTalk got its own channel. On the 20th of April 2015, a late-night StarTalk talk show began on the National Geographic Channel, where he asked pop culture celebrities about their experiences with science.

  In 2014 he helped revive Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage as Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, shown on both FOX and the National Geographic Channel. Thirteen episodes aired in the first season. Tyson said that if a second season were made, he would hand the hosting role to another scientist. Yet on the 9th of March 2020 he returned with a follow-up season, Cosmos: Possible Worlds.

  One project never reached players. Around 2016 Tyson was co-developing a sandbox video game with Whatnot Entertainment, called Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents: Space Odyssey. It aimed to offer a realistic simulation of building a space-faring culture, with educational material about space and technology. Development was abandoned after April 2020.

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• 6. Views and Advocacy

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  In a conversation with comedian Paul Mecurio, Tyson defined spirituality as a feeling that connects a person to the universe. For him, the moment a discovery touches an emotion rather than only the intellect is "a spiritual encounter with the universe." He explored the theme in essays such as "The Perimeter of Ignorance" and "Holy Wars" in Natural History, and at the Beyond Belief symposium in November 2006. He has argued that some great historical scientists' belief in intelligent design limited their inquiries.

  Asked at the University at Buffalo whether he believed in a higher power, he pointed to the universe's dangers. "When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us," he said, "I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence." In an interview with Big Think he said the closest word was "agnostic," though he would rather fit no category at all.

  He told a story about his own online biography page. It said he was an atheist, so he changed it to say agnostic. A week later it said atheist again. His final attempt read that he was "widely claimed by atheists" but was actually an agnostic.

  In March 2014, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci pressed him on the label. Tyson said he was on the "I really don't care" side of any adjectives placed before the word atheist. He said he respected Richard Dawkins, who, in his words, was "fulfilling a really important role out there." That same month on The Nerdist Podcast, Tyson called philosophy "useless." The remark drew disapproval, and Pigliucci later criticized it.

  A different set of convictions came out at a 2005 conference at the National Academy of Sciences. Someone asked whether genetic differences might keep women from working as scientists. Tyson answered from experience. Becoming an astrophysicist had been, in his words, "hands down the path of most resistance," and he said the question could not be settled until equal opportunity existed.

  In a 2014 interview with Grantland, he said race is not the point of his career, and that it would distract from the astrophysics. He no longer speaks publicly about it. "I don't even give Black History Month talks," he said, adding that since 1993 he has declined every interview premised on his being black. He has also advocated for the freedoms of gay and transgender people, arguing the point repeatedly against right-wing commentators.

  His most persistent cause is NASA. At a March 2010 address, he said people guess the agency takes five or ten cents of each tax dollar, when it is "a half a penny." In March 2012 he repeated the figure before the United States Senate Science Committee. Inspired by his remarks, John Zeller founded the Penny4NASA campaign that year, aiming to double NASA's budget to one percent of the federal budget. In his book Space Chronicles, Tyson argues that ambitious goals like sending humans to Mars will probably need a military or economic driver.

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• 7. Allegations and Investigations

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  In November and December 2018, a woman accused Tyson of rape, and three other women alleged inappropriate sexual advances. Tchiya Amet El Maat accused him of drugging and raping her in 1984, when both were graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. Tyson denied the accusation.

  Katelyn Allers, a professor at Bucknell University, alleged that Tyson touched her inappropriately at a 2009 American Astronomical Society gathering. Ashley Watson, his assistant on Cosmos, alleged that he made inappropriate sexual advances in 2018, and she resigned days later. Tyson described one moment as a Native American handshake, in which he held her hand and looked her in the eye for 10 seconds. When she left, he told her he wanted to hug her but would rather not, in case he wanted more.

  A fourth woman, who remained anonymous, alleged that he made inappropriate comments at a 2010 holiday party at the American Museum of Natural History. Regarding Allers and Watson, Tyson confirmed the basic facts of the situations but said his actions had been misinterpreted. He apologized for any misunderstanding or offense.

  Fox, National Geographic, the Museum of Natural History and the producers of Cosmos each announced investigations, which Tyson said he welcomed. On the 3rd of January 2019, the National Geographic Channel put further episodes of StarTalk on hiatus so the investigation could proceed unimpeded. The premiere of Cosmos: Possible Worlds, first set for the 3rd of March 2019, was delayed as well.

  On the 15th of March 2019, National Geographic and Fox announced that the investigation was complete and that they were moving forward with both StarTalk and Cosmos. They added that there would be no further comment, and no dates were set. That July, the American Museum of Natural History said Tyson would keep his job as director of the Hayden Planetarium.

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• 8. Reach and Recognition

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  Stephen Colbert once teased Tyson in print. In his comedic book I Am America (And So Can You!), Colbert wrote that most scientists are decent, well-intentioned people and then, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an absolute monster. Tyson became a regular guest on The Colbert Report, and he later appeared 22 times on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, including the series finale.

  His other appearances stretch widely. He has been on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Rachel Maddow Show. He was the ask-the-expert lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He has also played himself on Stargate Atlantis, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and Family Guy. In 2025 he appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy!

  His fans have turned out online as well. On Reddit, he is responsible for three of the top ten most popular Ask Me Anything sessions of all time. In May 2011, on StarTalk Radio, he said he donates all income earned as a guest speaker.

  Some cameos reached comics and music. In Action Comics #14, published on the 7th of November 2012, Tyson determines that Superman's home planet Krypton orbited the red dwarf LHS 2520 in the constellation Corvus, 27.1 light-years from Earth. He helped DC Comics pick a real star. He chose Corvus partly because it is Latin for Crow, the mascot of Superman's high school, the Smallville Crows. In 2016 he delivered a monolog on the Avenged Sevenfold track "Exist," and in 2017 he appeared on Logic's album Everybody.

  On the 11th of September 2001, Tyson lived near the World Trade Center and saw the attacks. He wrote a widely circulated letter about what he saw. Footage he filmed that day appeared in the 2008 documentary 102 Minutes That Changed America.

  The honors accumulated. People magazine named him Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive in 2000. In 2001 the International Astronomical Union renamed asteroid 1994KA as 13123 Tyson. Time magazine's editors put him on the Time 100 list in 2007. In 2015 the National Academy of Sciences gave him its Public Welfare Medal for his "extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science." In 2017 he received the Hubbard Medal from the National Geographic Society and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication from Starmus. In 2018 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry earned a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.

  Colleges have awarded him honorary doctorates, from York College in 1997 to Arcadia University in 2023, including Yale University in 2018. A leaping frog, Indirana tysoni, was named after him in 2016. His list of works now ends with a book titled Take Me To Your Leader, dated 2026.

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