Deborah Byrd is executive producer, editor-in-chief and founder of the Earth & Sky radio series and website. With co-host Joel Block, Byrd has produced more than 10,000 science radio programs since the late 1970s. With her 30 years experience in science broadcasting and natural talent for bringing complex scientific information to the public, Byrd is a trusted “voice” for science, known to millions of radio listeners.
A science journalist and writer for 30 years, Byrd has won many awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. Along with Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Sir Patrick Moore and Timothy Ferris, Byrd was an early winner of the Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In 2003, Byrd’s radio series Earth & Sky became the first radio show ever to win a Public Service Award from the U.S. National Science Board “for its achievement in broadcasting explanations of research and everyday science to a worldwide audience.”
Earth & Sky is Byrd’s second syndicated science radio series. She created the first-ever syndicated short-format science radio show, the astronomy series StarDate, in 1978 and went on to produce more than 5,000 astronomy radio spots over 15 years. In 1991, Byrd created Earth & Sky and another 5,000 radio spots on science of all kinds.
Byrd is also the founder of the annual Texas Star Party, which attracts hundreds of stargazers each year to a week-long astronomy festival, featuring speakers and nightly telescope viewing under dark Texas skies.