Author

author-photo-180-wideDavid Baron is a journalist, author, and broadcaster who has spent his thirty-year career largely in public radio. He has worked as an environment correspondent for NPR, a science reporter for Boston’s WBUR, and health and science editor for PRI’s The World.

During his tenure with NPR in the 1990s, David reported extensively on the growing conflict between people and wildlife, including struggles to coexist with deer, beavers, grizzlies, and cougars. He further explored these issues as a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, which led to the writing and publication of The Beast in the Garden in 2003.

Back at NPR, David continued to report on the complex relationship between human beings and the natural environment in a special series called Shifting Ground.

David’s recent book, American Eclipse, delves into science history. Published in the summer of 2017, just before a total solar eclipse crossed the United States from coast to coast for the first time in 99 years, the book tells the true story of a similar eclipse that gripped the nation in 1878 and helped inspire America’s rise as a scientific power.

A compelling speaker and an avid umbraphile, David shared his passion for eclipses in a popular 2017 TED talk, which has been viewed more than 2 million times.

Now writing a book about the planet Mars, David recently served as the Baruch S. Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation at the Library of Congress, and he is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism. He lives in Boulder.


Praise for THE BEAST IN THE GARDEN
"Reads like a crime novel . . . each chapter ends on a cliff-hanging note." —Seattle Times