Saul Perlmutter – 2026 Sagan Prize Recipient
Saul Perlmutter is Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Chair, and is head of the International Supernova Cosmology Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Perlmutter received the Nobel Prize in 2011 for co-discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In addition to his academic work, Dr. Perlmutter has concentrated on public outreach to encourage better critical thinking for all. His course “Sense and Sensibility and Science” describes how the methodology of science is based on discovering an accurate representation of reality, and that not just scientists, but individual citizens can make better decisions if they understand how this methodology works. His lectures and videos with PBS, BBC, Discovery Channel, and others describe the process as well as the results, and explain the many heuristic biases that humans have that make them fool themselves. He explains how to mitigate these biases by becoming aware of them.