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Professor, Department of Astronomy at Columbia University
David J. Helfand has served on the faculty of Columbia University in New York since 1977, nearly half that time as Chair of the Department of Astronomy. He has also spent three years at the University of Cambridge, most recently as the Sackler Distinguished Visiting Astronomer, and earlier was a visiting scientist at the Danish Space Research Institute and the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of over 200 scientific publications and has mentored 22 PhD students, but most of his pedagogical efforts have been aimed at teaching science to non-science majors. In 2004, he finally succeeded in implementing a vision he began working on in 1982 that has all Columbia first-year students taking his science course as part of the University’s famed, century-old Core Curriculum. He received the Columbia’s 2001 Presidential Teaching Award and the 2002 Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates.
In 2005, he became involved in the effort to create Canada's first independent, not-for-profit, university, Quest University Canada. He was a Visiting Tutor in the University's inaugural semester in the Fall of 2007 and served as President & Vice-Chancellor from the Fall of 2008 through 2015 leading this innovative experiment in higher education. He has recently been advising other new universities based on this model in England and Wales.
From 2011-2014, Prof. Helfand served as President of the American Astronomical Society, the professional organization of astronomers, astrophysicists, planetary scientists and solar physicists in North America. His is currently Chair of the Board of the American Institute of Physics. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Science Counts, an organization formed to communicate with the public about the importance and impact of publicly funded fundamental research. He is also a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and an Inaugural Fellow of the American Astronomical Society
His first book, appropriately released in 2016, is entitled “A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age”. It provides essential tools any informed citizen must have to combat the tsunami of mis- and dis-information that threatens to drown all rational approaches to personal decision-making and the formation of good public policy.