Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.
Tyson was born as the second of three children in Manhattan, New York, into a family living in the Bronx. His mother, Sunchita Maria Tyson, was a gerontologist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and is of Puerto Rican descent. His father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, who is African American, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for New York City mayor John Lindsay, and the first Director of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited. Tysons middle name, deGrasse, is from the maiden name of his paternal grandmother, who was born as Altima de Grasse in the British West Indies island of Nevis.
Source: Wikipedia