Dava Sobel was born in the Bronx, New York on June 15, 1947. She received a B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1969. She is a former New York Times science reporter and has contributed articles to Audubon, Discover, Life, Harvard Magazine, and The New Yorker.
She has written several science related books including Letters to Father, The Planets, and A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love won the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology and a 2000 Christopher Award. She has co-authored six books with astronomer Frank Drake including Is Anyone Out There? She also co-authored with William J. H. Andrewes The Illustrated Longitude.
Because her work provides awareness of science and technology to the general public, she has received the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board in 2001, the Bradford Washburn Award in 2001,the Klumpke-Roberts Award in 2008, and the Eduard Rhein Foundation in Germany in 2014.
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