C. Alex Young, Ph.D.

I study the sun.

My friends and family have always been excited by my work. In particular, they are especially interested because the Sun feels real and tangible.

Of all the many interesting astrophysical objects in the universe the sun is the one object most people can feel through its light and heat. I have always enjoyed sharing my bit of knowledge about the sun with my friends, family and the public at large.

The explosion of social media gave me a perfect way to share my information and the information of others about the sun in a fresh and dynamic fashion.

To leverage these new resources I envisioned a central website on which to share and organize the exciting past and present knowledge about the sun and its relationship to our lives.

This website would connect to other social media sources like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in order to provide a broad reach to share rich and dynamic content. I first started the Facebook Fanpage. But it really all came together when I combined my science with my then girlfriend, Linda Schenk’s (now wife) strategy and design. Our wonder twin powers came together to create the fanpage and then an amazing website. This was something I could have never brought to fruition without her eyes, vision, passion, and expertise.  We were joined by the other member of The Sun Today team, Ryan Milligan.

Together we have been able to provide our fans with stories about past solar events and solar history as well as images and video of the current sun’s activity.

We have now been able to make my initial idea become a reality with thesuntoday.org. It serves as the central hub and it connects to TheSunToday at FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube.