Douglas Arion, PhD is the director of Mountains of Stars, a public science outreach and education program that engages the public with ‘environmental awareness from a cosmic perspective’. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy and Donald D. Hedberg Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Entrepreneurial Studies at Carthage College. He founded the college’s Griffin Observatory and led observing programs at Yerkes, Steward, and Kitt Peak National Observatories.

He co-founded Galileoscope to provide high quality, low cost telescopes for worldwide promotion of science education. Initially launched for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the International Year of Light 2015, more than 270,000 are now in use in over 110 countries, and a new edition featuring solar filters for the upcoming eclipses is now available.

Arion led the effort to create the AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park, which protects over 100,000 acres in Maine – the last substantial dark sky region in the eastern 2/3 of the US. He launched the production of Defending the Dark, a documentary on dark skies in Maine that has been shown on PBS across the US and at several major film festivals.

Arion is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the American Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union, has received the Distinguished Service Award from Sigma Pi Sigma (the physics honorary society), the Volunteer Leadership Award from the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the Dark Sky Defender Award from the International Dark Sky Association. He serves on US and international commissions on protecting astronomy and space environments. He has conducted research in many fields, including the solar atmosphere, radiation effects on electronics and space systems, instrumentation development, and asteroid compositions.