Steven J. Dick is the 2013-2014 Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress. He was the 2011-2012 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair at the National Air and Space Museum, and served as the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office from 2003-2009. Prior to that he worked as an astronomer and historian of science at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. for 24 years, including three years on a mountaintop in New Zealand.
Dr. Dick is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the NASA Group Achievement Award for his role in NASA’s multidisciplinary program in astrobiology, the NASA Group Achievement Award for the book America in Space, and the 2006 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. He has served as Chairman of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the History of Astronomy Commission of the International Astronomical Union, and as President of the Philosophical Society of Washington. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, and a corresponding member of the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2009 the International Astronomical Union designated minor planet 6544 stevendick in his honor.
