Neil de Grasse Tyson was appointed the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in 1996, and also serves as a research scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University. Born and raised in New York City, Dr. Tyson earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia University in 1991. His monthly column, "Universe," appears in Natural History magazine, and he is the author of two previous books, Merlin's Tour of the Universe and Just Visiting This Planet.