Super Stargazer - astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson - Brief Article

Ebony, August, 2000 by Charles Whitaker

Neil De Grasse Tyson Is The Nation's Astronomical Authority

ASTROPHYSICIST Neil de Grasse Tyson shines like a supernova in the constellation of scientific celebrities. His post as director of New York's $210 million Hayden Planetarium, housed in the American Museum of Natural History's glistening new Rose Center for Earth and Space, makes him one of the most visible and influential scientists in the country--the man media-types come clamoring for when galactic phenomena need to be explained.

Turn on the tube during an eclipse, a comet sighting or a blue moots, and you're likely to see Tyson, a strapping ex-wrestler and Afro-Caribbean dancer, waxing eloquently on the mysteries of the heavens for all the network news shows. With his thick, helmet-like Afro, his quirky star-strewn ties and vests, and his infectious enthusiasm for all-things cosmic, Tyson, 41, cuts quite a telegenic figure. Those qualities, along with his expansive understanding of the workings of the universe and his impeccable academic pedigree, have enabled the Harvard- and Columbia University-trained astrophysicist to fill the void left by the once ubiquitous astronomer Carl Sagan, who died in 1996. Tyson, it seems, has stepped neatly into Sagan's vacant space boots and assumed the mantle of super stargazer.

As director of the Hayden, which had its reopening in February, Tyson was responsible for helping to redesign of one of the nation's most popular planetarium's and translating the science of the universe into multimedia exhibits and a high-tech space show that educate and amaze viewers. He also leads a research team of astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History, and is a visiting research scientist at Princeton University.

He is a prolific writer, with five books (he was the first African-American since Benjamin Banneker to produce a book on astronomy), and dozens of articles and essays for the popular and scholarly press to his credit.

It seems Tyson has spent his entire lifetime preparing for his current career. Ever since the age of 9, when he gazed into the night sky above his Bronx apartment building with a pair of binoculars, Tyson, who was born and reared in New York City, has been carried away by space. "I looked up and I saw the moon and it was gorgeous," he recalls. "It wasn't just pretty, it was another world, with mountains and valleys and craters and hills. And I thought, `If a pair of binoculars can do this, imagine what a big telescope can do.' After that, I was hooked."

His parents--Cyril, a commissioner for human resources in the administration of former New York City Mayor John Lindsay, and Sunchita, a gerontologist--stoked young Neil's interest in the stars with regular trips to the Hayden Planetarium. In 1970, the Tysons bought their middle child (Neil has an older brother and a younger sister) a telescope for his 12th birthday. From that moment on, Neil Tyson's fascination with the cosmos became an obsession. "My singular focus was on the study of the universe," he says. "I knew I had to take whatever path was necessary to pursue that interest."

He took after-school astronomy classes at the Hayden and traveled to the Mojave Desert at age 14 to participate in an astronomy camp. (Even then he exhibited a penchant for theatricality; he arrived at camp wearing a billowing white shirt, reminiscent of a 19th century British explorer.) By age 15, he was already recognized as an astronomical prodigy, and was hired to give his first lectures.

He became so well-known that Carl Sagan, who was on the faculty at Cornell University, personally drove Tyson around the campus and wrote him a letter in an effort to recruit him. But Tyson had his sights narrowly focused on Harvard, which, he'd learned through years of studying the bios of contributors to Scientific American magazine, was the institution that produced most of the nation's high-profile astrophysicists.

Not everyone was inspired by Tyson's intellectual gifts, however.

At 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, he was a talented athlete--captain of his high school wrestling team. His success on the wrestling mat seemed to blind his high school advisers to his academic prowess.

"I remember that when my guidance counselor found out I was applying to Harvard, she said, `Why are you applying there?'" he recalls. "She thought I should be applying to schools with good wrestling programs, never mind the fact that Harvard was the leading institution in astrophysics, and I had this burning desire to study astrophysics. She could only see me in the stereotypical role of Black male athlete."

Tyson says he has endured this not-so-subtle form of racism throughout his career. He has overcome, he says, because "My interest in this field of study was strong and my reservoirs of energy were so deep that I always knew I could outfight forces that were trying to turn me away."

At Harvard, Tyson, whose interests are as vast as his reservoir of energy, wrestled on the varsity team, rowed with an intramural crew team, and performed with an Afro-Caribbean dance company, the members of which marveled at his ability to do a full split and place his hands and chest on the ground.