Dava Sobel

Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include Longitude, about English clockmaker John Harrison, and Galileo's Daughter, about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste, and The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars.

Dava Sobel
Sobel in 2015
Born (1947-06-15) June 15, 1947[1]
The Bronx, New York City
EducationBronx High School of Science
Alma materBinghamton University
Websitewww.davasobel.com
Signature

Biography

Sobel was born in The Bronx, New York City. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Binghamton University. She wrote Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time in 1995. The story was made into a television movie, of the same name by Charles Sturridge and Granada Film in 1999, and was shown in the United States by A&E.

Her book Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.[2]

She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from the University of Bath and Middlebury College, Vermont, both awarded in 2002.[3]

Sobel made her first foray into teaching at the University of Chicago as the Vare Writer-in-Residence in the winter of 2006. She taught a one-quarter seminar on writing about science.

She served as a judge for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2012.[4]

Sobel is the niece of journalist Ruth Gruber[5] and the cousin of epidemiologist David Michaels.

Dava Sobel in November 2007

Legacy

The asteroid 30935 Davasobel is named after her.[6]

Sobel states she is a chaser of solar eclipses and that "it's the closest thing to witnessing a miracle". As of August 2012 she had seen eight, and planned to see the November 2012 total solar eclipse in Australia.[7]

Publications
External video
Presentation by Sobel on Longitude, June 17, 1997, C-SPAN
Booknotes interview with Sobel on Longitude, January 17, 1999, C-SPAN
Presentation by Sobel on Galileo's Daughter, December 14, 1999, C-SPAN
Presentation by Sobel on Galileo's Daughter, November 19, 2000, C-SPAN
Presentation by Sobel on Letters to Father, December 7, 2001, C-SPAN
Presentation by Sobel on The Planets, November 15, 2005, C-SPAN
Presentation by Sobel on The Glass Universe, January 19, 2017, C-SPAN
  • Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1995) ISBN 1-85702-571-7. OCLC 909490210 – the genius in question was John Harrison, who spent decades trying to convince the British Admiralty of the accuracy of his naval timepieces and their use in determining longitude when at sea in order to win the longitude prize. The book itself won the 1997 British Book of the Year award.
  • Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (2000) ISBN 0-14-028055-3
  • The Best American Science Writing 2004 (editor) ISBN 9780060726409, OCLC 916515131
  • The Planets: A discourse on the discovery, science, history and mythology, of the planets in our solar system, with one chapter devoted to each of the celestial spheres. (2005) ISBN 1-85702-850-3, OCLC 77646686[8]
  • A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. Bloomsbury Publishing. October 4, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8027-7893-2. OCLC 819387028[9]
  • The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (2016) ISBN 9780143111344, OCLC 972263666[10]

References
  1. Sobel, Dava. "Self-Portrait". Retrieved December 26, 2013.
  2. "The Pulitzer Prizes: Biography or Autobiography". Retrieved April 20, 2017.
  3. "Dava Sobel Biography". Archived from the original on December 6, 2011.
  4. "Announcing the 2012 PEN Literary Award Recipients". PEN American Center. October 15, 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2013.
  5. Brawarsky, Sandee (November 22, 2016). "100 Years of Asking Questions". The Jewish Week. New York City. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  6. "30935 Davasobel", Jet Propulsion Laboratory Small-Body Database Browser
  7. "Transcript". Jennifer Byrne Presents: Dava Sobel. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
  8. Moore, Patrick (September 2, 2005). "Review: The Planets by Dava Sobel". The Guardian.
  9. Brown, Helen (October 11, 2011). "Review: A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos by Dava Sobel". The Telegraph.
  10. "The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel". PenguinRandomhouse.com.
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