Guy Consolmagno SJ

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is the Director of the Vatican Observatory. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters' degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona. He was a research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989. At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, in 2015 Pope Francis appointed Dr. Consolmagno director of the Vatican Observatory.

Br. Guy’s research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies. Along with more than 250 scientific publications, he is the author of a number of popular astronomy books. In 2000, the IAU named asteroid 4597 Consolmagno in recognition of his work. In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences.