Ep. 23 Dr. Jeffrey Bennett Scientist, Educator, Author & Speaker
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Jeffrey Bennett holds a B.A. in Biophysics from the University of California at San Diego and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He specializes in mathematics and science education, writing for and speaking to audiences ranging from elementary school children to college faculty. His extensive teaching experience, which spans all levels from preschool through graduate school, includes having founded and run a private science summer school for elementary and middle school children and teaching more than fifty college classes in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and education. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and writing, including the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award.
Dr. Bennett is the lead author of best-selling college textbooks in four distinct subject areas: astronomy, mathematics, statistics, and astrobiology (life in the universe); together, these books have sold more than 1.5 million copies. He has written six critically acclaimed books for general public: On the Cosmic Horizon (Addison Wesley, 2001); Beyond UFOs (Princeton University Press, 2008/2011), which was selected by Miami University as their Convocation book for all incoming students to read in 2008/9; Math for Life (Big Kid Science, 2014), which won the Colorado Book Award for general nonfiction; What is Relativity? (Columbia University Press, 2014); On Teaching Science (Big Kid Science, 2014); and A Global Warming Primer (Big Kid Science, 2016).
For children, Dr. Bennett is the creator and author of the award-winning series “Science Adventures with Max the Dog,” which includes Max Goes to the Space Station, Max Goes to the Moon, Max Goes to Mars, and Max Goes to Jupiter; and of the Earth science focused book The Wizard Who Saved the World. These five children’s titles were selected by the Story Time From Space program as the first set of books to be launched to the International Space Station; launched in January 2014, they have been read by astronauts for children around the world. His latest book for children, I, Humanity, was selected for the second Story Time From Space launch, and joined his other books on the International Space Station in December 2015. Because his textbook The Cosmic Perspective was also taken into space (during the 2009 Space Shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope), Dr. Bennett has now had a total of seven books launched into space.
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