About EarthSky

Hi, I’m Deborah Byrd ... Editor-in-Chief of this website and your geeky sister and friend. You might know me from the award-winning radio series EarthSky: A Clear Voice for Science, which I founded and produced globally from 1991 to 2013. Today, the awesome EarthSky team has a blast bringing you daily updates on your cosmos and world, via this website. We love your photos and your news tips!

Meet Our Amazing Team

Deborah Byrd

Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Our Editor-in-Chief Deborah Byrd works to keep all the astronomy balls in the air between EarthSky's website, YouTube page and social media platforms. She's the primary editor of our popular daily newsletter and a frequent host of EarthSky livestreams. Deborah created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she won the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.

Joni Stewart

Chief Financial Officer
Joni Stewart, Chief Financial Officer and Partner. Joni ensures that deadlines are met, that excellence is the standard, and that fiscal responsibility is upheld in all EarthSky projects and products. Since 2008, she has worked with clients and sponsors, as well as outside accountants and auditors, to implement the most up-to-date and accurate production and financial tracking systems available for our company. She also assists independent financial reviewers, providing the information they need to judge that our systems are sound. In 2016, Joni became part-owner of one of the companies that oversees EarthSky online.

David Callejas

Marketing Director
David Callejas, Marketing Director, helps bring EarthSky's content to the world via online ads and other products. He creates strategies that help people around the world find us and appreciate the work we do. He helps manage the EarthSky Store and bring to you the new products that you love. He's the chief liaison between EarthSky.org and the world of commerce. All that, plus he helps post content and populate our pages on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Go David!

Brandon McKay

Technical Support
Brandon McKay is a web developer and system administrator for EarthSky. He also handles day-to-day technical support, runs EarthSky's fundraiser website, and helps with major eclipse livestreams on EarthSky's Youtube channel. In his free time, he designs and manages websites for small businesses and freelancers at milkyway.co.

Chelynne Campion

Production/ Sales Assistant
Chelynne Campion is a Production/ Sales Assistant for EarthSky. Her family just purchased a telescope, and she's now learning to be a stargazer!

Will Triggs

Editor, Author, Producer
Will Triggs joined EarthSky to work on our daily newsletter, but he has since become a popular presenter of space news on our YouTube channel. He fell in love with stargazing after moving to Norfolk on England's east coast, where the dark skies allowed him to catch a glimpse of the Milky Way for the first time. Having joined EarthSky after completing degrees in English and Creative Writing, he is passionate about communicating the beauty and importance of what's around us, and what's above us.

Kelly Whitt

Editor and Author
Kelly Kizer Whitt - EarthSky’s nature and travel vlogger on YouTube - writes and edits some of the most fascinating stories at EarthSky.org. She's been writing about science, with a focus on astronomy, for decades. She began her career at Astronomy Magazine and made regular contributions to other outlets, including AstronomyToday and the Sierra Club. She has nine published books, including a children's picture book, Solar System Forecast, and a young adult dystopian novel, A Different Sky.

Marcy Curran

Editor and Author
Meet Marcy Curran, our voice of the night sky on EarthSky YouTube. Check out her popular short videos in the Sky category on our YouTube channel. When she's not making videos, Marcy is an EarthSky editor, helping to keep our night sky guide up-to-date and just generally helping to keep the wheels turning around here. Marcy has enjoyed stargazing since she was a child, going on family camping trips under the dark skies of Wyoming. She bought her first telescope in time to see Halley’s Comet when it visited the inner solar system in 1986. She co-founded her local astronomy club and remains an active board member. Marcy taught astronomy at her local community college for over 20 years. She and her husband live in Wyoming, in a rural location, with an all-sky camera and super-good horizon views! And, their observatory will soon be ready to photograph the night sky.

Cristina Ortiz

Editor, Author, Producer
Cristina Ortiz - based in Granada, Spain - is EarthSky's defender of animals with her weekly "lifeform" videos at EarthSky YouTube. Discover the most fascinating facts about all the beings with whom we share Earth. Are you ready for the adventure? Cristina has been an EarthSky.org editor since 2021. She has a master’s degree in translation and interpreting, specializing in science and technology. "Since I was a kid," she says, "I could feel that passion for science and communication."

Claudia Crowley

Editor
Claudia Crowley proofs and edits material for the EarthSky website, newsletter, and videos. She says: "Second only to doing space shuttle documentation, EarthSky is the most exciting job I ever had." Besides NASA, Claudia wrote and edited for tech companies such as Dell, TI, NEC, and IBM. As a support tech during the wild early days of the Internet, she helped introduce hundreds of newcomers to the wonders of cyberspace. Claudia also worked as the general manager of a small wireless ISP and with the professional organization Part-15. She says: “I’ve been a fan of space and science my whole life, and I love being part of an organization where I get to learn more about them all the time.”

C. Alex Young

Sun Team
C. Alex Young is a solar astrophysicist studying the Sun and space weather. Alex is passionate about sharing science with diverse audiences. This led him to start The Sun Today with his designer wife, Linda. First through Facebook and Twitter then adding an extensive website thesuntoday.org, the two work together to engage the public about the Sun and its role in our solar system. Alex led national engagement efforts for the 2017 total solar eclipse. He is the Associate Director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Raúl Cortés

Sun Team
Raúl Cortés studied engineering at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Monterrey, Mexico, obtained a scholarship to continue his studies in Japan and after returning to Monterrey he got credits on MBA from the Graduate School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Faculty. He became a teacher at the University UANL teaching Math and Physics and dedicated the rest of his professional career to serve in engineering areas for USA, Japan and Germany based corporations. His passion for the skies go back to when he was a child, always intrigued about the stars and constellations and reading and researching about the matter. From 2010 on, he dedicated his attention to photographing the stars, constellations, the moon and the sun. Raúl's work on his photography has been published and posted on the ESC as well as in other platforms and has gained attention to be published by local Monterrey newspapers.

Eddie Irizarry

Contributor
Eddie Irizarry of the Sociedad de Astronomía del Caribe (Astronomical Society of the Caribbean) has been a NASA Solar System Ambassador since 2004. He loves public outreach and has published multiple astronomy articles for EarthSky, as well as for newspapers in Puerto Rico. He has also offered dozens of conferences related to asteroids and comets at the Arecibo Observatory. Asteroid 33012EddieIrizarry, a 7.8 km space rock, has been named in his honor.

Paul Scott Anderson

Contributing Author
Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. He studied English, writing, art and computer/publication design in high school and college. He later started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was later renamed Planetaria. He also later started the blog Fermi Paradoxica, about the search for life elsewhere in the universe. While interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science and SETI. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis with Universe Today. He has also written for SpaceFlight Insider and AmericaSpace and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly. He also did some supplementary writing for the iOS app Exoplanet. He has been writing for EarthSky since 2018, and also assists with proofing and social media.

John Jardine Goss

Night Sky Cartographer
“I can sometimes see the moon in the daytime” was a cosmic revelation that John Jardine Goss first discovered through personal observations at age 6. It shook his young concept of the universe and launched his interest in astronomy and stargazing, a fascination he still holds today. John is past president of the Astronomical League, the largest U.S. federation of astronomical societies, with over 24,000 members. He's earned the title of Master Observer and is a regular contributor to the video series, “Global Star Party.” He has authored the celestial observing guides “Exploring the Starry Realm,” and “Carpe Lunam,” and “Take Your First Steps, an Introduction to Amateur Astronomy.” John also wrote for twenty years the monthly stargazing column, Roanoke Skies, for the Roanoke Times, and currently writes a bimonthly column, Skywatch, for Blue Ridge Country magazine. He has contributed to Sky and Telescope magazine, the IDA Nightscape, the Astronomical League’s Reflector magazine, and the RASC Observer’s Handbook.

Theresa Wiegert

Assistant Editor
Theresa Wiegert is a Swedish-Canadian astronomer with a Ph.D. in astrophysics and a master's in physics. She has loved the sky and everything in it and beyond ever since she was four years old and asked her father about the very bright star she saw one early Christmas morning. Learning it wasn’t a star but the planet Venus, she started reading anything astronomy-related she could find. Eventually she ended up as a radio astronomer, researching gas in spiral galaxies. She loves science outreach and teaching, especially showing the night sky to groups of kids (and adults!).

Armando Caussade

Assistant Editor
Armando is known primarily as an astronomy educator, after 30+ years of extensive public outreach and 10 years teaching in colleges. As one of only a handful of science communicators in Puerto Rico during Comet Halley's last visit, he assumed a pioneering role starting in 1985 when science was just beginning to enter the collective mindset. Over the years, his work as a teacher, speaker and writer, inspired people to pursue interests in science and brought enduring change to Puerto Rican culture. After being accepted into the 2014–2015 Antarctic season of PolarTREC, Armando was assigned to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where in 2015 he successfully conducted 10 days of work at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. His affiliations include Ana G. Méndez University, Cupey campus (2014 to 2021), the University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla campus (2015 to 2017), NASA JPL's Solar System Ambassadors (2004 to 2006), and NASA Space Grant (2017 to 2019) where he served as an affiliate representative.

Michael Maimone

Assistant Editor
Michael Maimone is an assistant editor for EarthSky, where he channels his passion for communicating complex scientific ideas in ways everyone can understand. He curates and edits EarthSky's monthly sun archive, while also sharing its stories across popular social media platforms. Michael graduated from Penn State University in 2019 with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Planetary Science & Astronomy and Meteorology & Atmospheric Science. He is also a recent graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where he received his Master's degree in Systems Engineering, with distinction. Michael has experience in radio astronomy research with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and has contributed to the engineering teams of several NASA missions, including both the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers.

Shireen Gonzaga

Contributor
Shireen Gonzaga is a freelance writer who enjoys writing about natural history. She is also a technical editor at an astronomical observatory where she works on documentation for astronomers.

Dave Adalian

Contributing Author
Award-winning reporter and editor Dave Adalian's fascination with the cosmos began during a long-ago summer school trip. That fieldtrip never ended, and still Dave pursues adventures under the night sky. Dave grew up in California's Tulare County - where the San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada - a wilderness larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. He studied English, American literature and mass communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a variety news publications on- and offline during a career spanning more than 30 years.

Natalia Nava

Editorial Intern
Natalia Nava is a video editing intern for EarthSky. She helps the team out with interviews with scientists, tending EarthSky's daily newsletter, editing videos and tending EarthSky on YouTube. Natalia is in her second year at the University of Texas, majoring in Radio-Television Film, and minoring in digital arts. Apart from her love for all things that are video software, Natalia spends her time exploring Austin, going on hikes, hanging out with her friends, and learning all about the stars in our galaxy! She joined EarthSky with eagerness to learn and a passion to create.

Deborah Byrd in 1978 at McDonald Observatory. Photo by Marsha Canright. EarthSky staff, circa 1992. Deborah Byrd, control panel, Palomar telescope. Deborah Byrd and Joel Block, circa 1985. EarthSky staff, circa 2010.