Howard A. Smith, PhD, is a Senior Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts with over four hundred published articles in physics, astronomy and astrophysics. His research emphasizes the origins of stars and galaxies, in particular using techniques of infrared astronomy and spectroscopy. He has been the principal investigator on numerous national and international research grants and programs. A co-investigator on the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space Observatory satellite, he led the Extragalactic Science program for its Long Wavelength Spectrometer team and was a senior member of numerous teams with NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) space missions.
Dr. Smith was a Lecturer in the Harvard Astronomy Department and for ten years was the chair of the astronomy department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, where he supervised a staff of scientists and educators. He also played a key role in developing museum galleries, education programs, videos, and IMAX movies, including the Academy Award nominee “Cosmic Voyage.” For three years he served as a rotating discipline scientist at NASA headquarters, where he was responsible for grants in theory, data analysis, long-term research, and some proposed NASA missions. Before joining the Smithsonian, he led an astrophysics research program at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Smith has been recognized by Harvard for his excellence in teaching. In addition to his research activities or teaching undergraduates, he is active in public education and outreach. He lectures and teaches widely on the topic of science and religion, Judaism, cosmology, and modern physics, and does so to a broad audience including people from all religious faiths or atheistic perspectives, and people who normally have only a passing interest or knowledge in science or Jewish mysticism.
Dr. Smith holds an undergraduate degree from MIT in physics, a second degree from MIT in humanities and science, and a PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. A traditional and observant Jew, he has lectured on cosmology and Kabbalah for over thirty years. He is married with three children.