Professor William E. Burrows
William E. Burrows, M.A. (March 27, 1937 – June 29, 2024) was an American journalist, author, and educator who founded and directed the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) at New York University and cofounded the Alliance to Rescue Civilization. Across a career spanning more than five decades, he reported for the nation’s leading newspapers, authored more than a dozen books on aviation, space, and national security, and became one of the foremost chroniclers of the Space Age.
New York University recruited Bill in 1974 as an assistant professor of journalism, and he earned tenure in 1981. He was later named chairman of the university’s journalism department — now the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute — and in 1983 he established its graduate program in science journalism, today one of the world’s oldest and most respected science-writing master’s programs.
He served as its founding director and later as director emeritus, training generations of science journalists during his decades of teaching. In recognition of his legacy, NYU created the Burrows SHERP Alumni Scholarship Fund in his name, providing tuition-remission scholarships to students in the program. His abiding interests as a Professor of Journalism were air, space, and national security reporting.
Bill cofounded the Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC), a project that advocated an off-Earth backup of humanity — a Moon-based repository of human knowledge alongside DNA samples of life on Earth, intended to safeguard civilization against a global catastrophe. The initiative reflected a conviction that ran through much of his later work: that investment in space exploration was essential to the long-term survival of the human race. He developed the argument at length in The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth.
A leading public voice on planetary defense, Bill was the only non-scientist appointed to the National Research Council’s Near-Earth Object Survey and Detection Panel. His final book, The Asteroid Threat: Defending Our Planet From Deadly Near-Earth Objects (2014), examined the danger posed by near-Earth objects and the measures needed to counter them. In 2001, the International Astronomical Union honored his contributions by naming a main-belt asteroid, 9930 Billburrows, after him — an honor he was quick to note carried no risk of a collision with Earth.
Bill’s books spanned a wide range of his interests. Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security (1986) was a pioneering account of reconnaissance satellites and signals intelligence, while Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World (1994), written with Robert Windrem, surveyed the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. By Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War chronicled Cold War aerial reconnaissance, and his other titles ranged from Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond (1990) to Mission to Deep Space (1993).
His most celebrated work, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (1998), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History and is widely regarded as a definitive narrative history of spaceflight. The book received the 1998 Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award from the American Astronautical Society.
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Bill grew up in Rego Park, Queens, and graduated from Forest Hills High School. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in 1960 and a Master’s degree in international relations in 1962, both from Columbia University. He began his career that year as a news assistant at The New York Times, then reported for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Washington Post before the Times rehired him in 1967 to cover aviation.
A 1968 Times Magazine article he wrote about World War I German ace Manfred von Richthofen grew into his first book, Richthofen: A True History of the Red Baron (1969). After a spell as a feature writer for The Wall Street Journal, he moved with his family to Mallorca, Spain, supporting himself as a travel writer while completing three unpublished novels. Over his career, he also contributed to Foreign Affairs, among other publications.
Among his many honors, Bill received the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award from the American Astronautical Society, given for outstanding contributions to the advancement of the nation’s space programs. He won the 1991 Aviation and Space Writers Association Premier Award for Space Coverage and the 1992 Golden Dozen Teaching Award at New York University, and he served as a contributing editor of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine.
Bill married Joelle Hodgson in 1966; the couple divorced in 2005 and had one daughter, Lara Julie, a physician. He died of kidney failure in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 29, 2024, at the age of 87. Read his obituary, William E. Burrows, Historian of the Space Age, Is Dead at 87.
Watch A Celebration of the Life of Professor William E. Burrows (1937–2024).
Visit his Wikipedia page and learn about the Burrows SHERP Alumni Scholarship Fund established in his memory.