Alan Boss is an astrophysicist and and has been helping NASA plan its search for exoplanets since 1988. For the past thirty-five years, Boss has been on staff at the Carnegie Institution for Science in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. He leads a ground-based astrometric planet search effort at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. He currently chairs NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program(ExEP) Analysis Group and the ExEP Technology Assessment Committee. Boss is a member of the NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe.
More a history than purely about science, Boss's work gives readers a visceral sense of the highs and lows of modern research, from the distractions of interagency competition to the frustrations of shifting political interest and unpredictable funding. With clear writing and compelling characters, Boss's story is as much about how modern science gets done as it is about the fascinating results. - Publishers Weekly