Steven J. Dick, NASA's Chief Historian, is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and its SETI Permanent Study Group. He obtained his B.S. in astrophysics (1971), and MA and PhD (1977) in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University. He worked as an astronomer and historian of science at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. for 24 years before coming to NASA Headquarters in 2003. Among his books are Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (1982) (translated into French), The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science (Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Life on Other Worlds (1998), the latter translated into Chinese, Italian, Czech and Polish. His most recent books are (with James Strick) The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology (2004), and a comprehensive history of the U. S. Naval Observatory, Sky and Ocean Joined: The U. S. Naval Observatory, 1830-2000 (2003). The latter received the Pendleton Prize of the Society for History in the Federal Government. He is also editor of Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life and the Theological Implications (2000), and (with Keith Cowing) Risk and Exploration: Earth, Sea and Stars, NASA SP-2005-4701 (Washington, D.C., 2005). An edited volume (with Roger Launius) on Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight is forthcoming in 2006.

Dr. Dick is the recipient of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the NASA Group Achievement Award for his role in NASA's multidisciplinary program in astrobiology, and the 2006 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. He has served as Chairman of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the History of Astronomy Commission of the International Astronomical Union, and as President of the Philosophical Society of Washington.