Jim Bell is a planetary scientist, educator, author, public speaker, and was President of The Planetary Society from 2008-2020. He works at Arizona State University and is heavily involved in NASA solar system exploration missions like those of the Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. In 2011 he received the Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication from the American Astronomical Society. He is an avid writer for space-related magazines and blogs, and often appears in media interviews on space-related topics (check out Jim Bell's YouTube channel). His popular science and space photography books include Postcards from Mars (Dutton, 2006), Mars 3-D (Sterling, 2008), Moon 3-D (Sterling, 2009), The Space Book (Sterling, 2013) and most recently, The Interstellar Age (Dutton, 2015).
Jim is an active public speaker for both public and academic audiences, and as a member of the Penguin author's speaker's bureau, his talks cover a wide variety of space-related topics, with book talks on topics ranging from Exploring Mars with Rovers (Postcards from Mars), Viewing the Solar System in 3-D (Mars 3-D, Moon 3-D), and The Future of Space Exploration (The Space Book, The Interstellar Age), and other public-audience talks related to topics such as The Search for Life in the Universe, The Role of Science and Exploration in Society, and Building Bridges Between Engineers and Scientists.