Chris Impey

Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor. For 17 years he was Deputy Head of the Astronomy Department at the University of Arizona. He has over 240 refereed publications and 90 conference proceedings in astronomy and 140 publications on educational topics. His work has been supported by $20 million in grants from NASA and the NSF. As a professor, he has won eleven teaching awards, and has been heavily involved in curriculum and instructional technology development. He has mentored 30 graduate students and 270 undergraduates. Chris Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society. He has also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and Carnegie Council on Teaching’s Arizona Professor of the Year. In 2009 he was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2014 he was the first astronomer named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor.

Chris Impey aims to convey the excitement of astronomy in as many ways as possible to a large public audience. He gives 30 public talks a year, to audiences as large as 6000 and as varied as NASA engineers, first graders, and judges of the Ninth Circuit Court. For a decade, he has traveled to India to teach Buddhist monks in a program started by the Dalai Lama. He designed and led tours for donors and alumni to Italy, Chile, Britain, and South Africa, and he has been the astronomy enrichment lecturer for 4 cruise lines: Scientific American, Norwegian, Princess, and Viking. He has written 90 popular articles on cosmology and astrobiology and co-authored two introductory textbooks. He has published 9 popular science books on astronomy, astrobiology, cosmology, and the future of space travel.