Ethan Siegel

Ethan R. Siegel is an American theoretical astrophysicist and science writer, who studies the Big Bang theory. In the past he has been a professor at Lewis & Clark College and a blogger at Starts With a Bang, on ScienceBlogs and also on Forbes.com since 2016.

Early life and education Siegel was born to "a Jewish postal worker" and grew up in the Bronx, where he attended Bronx High School of Science until 1996. Siegel graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. degree in physics, classics and integrated science in 2000, and went on to earn his Ph.D. degree in astrophysics from the University of Florida in 2006. He received his undergraduate degree in physics, classics and integrated science from Northwestern University in June 2000. he went back into academia to study the universe. at graduate school at the University of Florida with advisor Prof. Jim Fry from 2001. He received his PhD in 2006. During his graduate studies he was a teaching assistant and lecturer in physics, he sat on the graduate student affairs committee, and he was an assistant coordinator for REU students.

Siegel was a teaching assistant in undergraduate general physics at the University of Wisconsin in Spring 2007 and then took up a post-doctoral research post at the University of Arizona. In 2008, Siegel moved with his then fiancée to Portland, Oregon, after deciding to not pursue an ambitious research career with long hours and instead focus on science outreach and have a "fuller, richer life". He later became science and health editor for Trapit. He moved to Toledo, Washington, in late 2014, while continuing to occasionally teach at Lewis & Clark.

Outreach In December 2015 Siegel published his popular science book Beyond the Galaxy: How Humanity Looked Beyond Our Milky Way and Discovered the Entire Universe with World Scientific, which he said is for "people who are curious and intelligent but don’t have scientific backgrounds". Greg Laden compared it to Isaac Asimov's "The Intelligent Man's Guide to the Physical Sciences", and PhD student Jonah Miller said it is "one of those rare books that not only communicates scientific ideas, but communicates what science itself is all about."

In 2012 and 2015, he was the Science Guest of Honor and toastmaster at MidSouthCon, where he promoted the joy of science. In April 2017, he was the Science Guest of Honor at Norwescon 40. Siegel wears costumes such as a wrestler or superhero to attract attention to his science communication.

Blog

Siegel's blog Starts With a Bang started in January 2008 at startswithabang.com and then ScienceBlogs from March 2009 to October 2017. The blog included a monthly podcast and Siegel posts answers to questions from readers in the "Ask Ethan" series. He hosted guest bloggers, including Sabine Hossenfelder and Paul Halpern.

Described as "beautifully illustrated and full of humour", his blog won the 2010 Physics.org award for best blog, judged by Adam Rutherford, Alom Shaha, Gia Milinovich, Hayley Birch, Lata Sahonta, and Stuart Clark and the people's choice award, and his post "Where Is Everybody?" came third in the 2011 3 Quarks Daily science writing awards, judged by Lisa Randall, winning a "Charm Quark" for "[taking] on the challenge of simplifying probability estimates without sacrificing the nature of the enterprise or suppressing the uncertainties involved". Siegel also wrote a column for NASA, The Space Place. Significant works include:

Siegel also writes articles beyond astrophysics. For example, following the publication of Science article by prominent US and UK researchers advocating for further investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Siegel advocates that Covid-19 did not come from Chinese labs.

Personal life Siegel met his wife in Madison, Wisconsin. He is "often asked why he doesn’t look like a scientist". He plays online chess and is a fan of My Little Pony.