On this date in 1978, science communicator Ethan R. Siegel was born in New York City, where his father was a postal worker. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1996, from Northwestern University with a B.A. in physics, classics and integrated science in 2000 and earned a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Florida in 2006. His 125-page Ph.D. thesis was titled “Cosmological perturbations and their effects on the universe: from inflation to acceleration.”
“What am I?” (in terms of religious belief), Siegel later asked in a blog. “First and foremost, I’m Jewish. For me, that doesn’t necessarily mean I believe anything that the Jewish faith tells me to believe: I don’t keep Kosher, I don’t believe in the Hebrew God, and the only sense I think I’m part of the ‘chosen’ is the ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ sense: ‘I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?’ … But simply identifying as ‘Jewish’ doesn’t mean I look to Judaism for answers to my questions about this world or this Universe.” (ScienceBlogs.com, Aug. 7, 2011)
He was a teaching assistant in 2007 in undergraduate general physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he met his future wife Jamie Cummings. They moved to Arizona and Portland, Ore., where Siegel taught and conducted research before deciding to focus instead on science outreach.
In 2011 they both won best beard prizes at a Portland event during which Siegel also wore a kilt, which he often does (or sometimes wears superhero or wrestling costumes). Jamie, whose beard was fabricated, placed third in her category.
As of this writing in 2026, they live in the small town of Toledo, Wash. (pop. 600). On the town’s Wikipedia page, he is the only person listed under “Notable people.” It is touted as the “Gateway to Mount St. Helens.” Fifty-seven people died there in 1980 when the mountain erupted volcanically.
A 2022 University of Florida alumni profile said Siegel had long observed a “disconnect between what scientists working at the frontiers of their fields knew about reality and what the general public believed the scientific consensus to be. … Siegel aims to make science accessible to anyone curious to know what is known and how we know it. Most notably, he founded the online science blog Starts With a Bang in 2008, which he has continued to produce and write.”
In 2015 he published “Beyond the Galaxy: How Humanity Looked Beyond Our Milky Way and Discovered the Entire Universe,” which he said was for “people who are curious and intelligent but don’t have scientific backgrounds.” Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder called it “the missing link between cosmology textbooks and popular science articles.”
He followed that up two years later with “Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive.” He and particle physicist Laura Manenti co-wrote a book geared primarily to children in 2023, “The littlest girl goes inside an atom.”
He also contributed to “Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope” in 2024 and “The Grand Cosmic Story: An Illustrated Timeline 13.8 Billion Years and Beyond” in 2025.
