Andrew Fraknoi has devoted most of his professional career to helping students, teachers, and the public to understand more about our exploration of the universe. He retired in 2017 as the Chair of the Astronomy Department at Foothill College, near San Francisco, where he taught courses on astronomy and physics "for poets" to more than 900 students each year. These days he teaches short courses for seniors at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University. He is also Senior Educator at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, an international scientific and educational organization, founded in 1889 and devoted to sharing the excitement of astronomy with the public.
From 1978 to 1992, Fraknoi was the Executive Director of the Society, and created "The Universe in the Classroom" (its newsletter for teachers) and Project ASTRO (a national) program to link volunteer astronomers with 4th - 9th grade classrooms. Family ASTRO, which he also founded, is a project to bring hands-on astronomy activities and games to families around the world. The activities from this project are available on Amazon in "The Universe at Your Fingertips 2.0".
For over 25 years, he has served on the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, a scientific and educational organization devoted to the search for life elsewhere in the universe. He also served as vice-chair of the Lick Observatory Council and is a Fellow of the California Academy of Science.
Fraknoi is the lead author of a series of non-technical introductory astronomy textbooks at the college level, the latest of which is "Astronomy," available free in electronic form from the nonprofit OpenStax publisher. He is also the author of a children's book on astronomy, and co-editor of two books of science fact and science fiction (published in the 1980's). More recently, he has begun to write science fiction short stories, which are available in two anthologies, "Mission Mars: Building Red" and "Science Fiction by Scientists."
He was selected as the California Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Endowment for Higher Education and received the Gemant Prize of the American Institute of Physics (also won by Stephen Hawking) for a lifetime of contributions to the popularization of physics. The International Astronomical Union has named asteroid 4859 Asteroid Fraknoi in recognition of his work in public education and outreach.
For more on Fraknoi's work and publications, see: http://www.fraknoi.com
For Fraknoi's blog, see: https://www.fraknoi.com/my-blog/
For Fraknoi's "AstroProf" Facebook page: see: http://www.facebook.com/Fraknoi
