Steven J. Dick, Ph.D., Secretary of METI International, was the 2014 Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress’s John W. Kluge Center. From 2011 to 2012 he held the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum. Dr. Dick served as the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office from 2003 to 2009 and, prior to that, as an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory for more than two decades.
Among his books are Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (1982), The Biological Universe: The Twentieth-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science (1996), Life on Other Worlds (1998), Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life, and the Theological Implications (2000), The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology (2004), Discovery and Classification in Astronomy: Controversy and Consensus (2013), and The Impact of Discovering Life Beyond Earth (2015).
In 2006, Dr. Dick received the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize from the American Astronomical Society for a career that has significantly influenced the field of the history of astronomy. In 2009, minor planet 6544 Stevendick was named in his honor.