Howard Alan Smith is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian,[1] and is the former chair of the astronomy department at Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
A research scientist with several hundred scholarly publications, he served as a visiting astronomer at NASA headquarters.
[citation needed] He was co-investigator of Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) discovery of a stellar laser at MWC 349.
[2] Active in public education, he has been recognized by Harvard for excellence in teaching.
[citation needed] He is a traditional, observant Jew, and has lectured on cosmology and Kabbalah for over twenty years.