About this speaker
Babak Tafreshi is an Iranian-American photojournalist and night sky explorer for the National Geographic who merges art and science through visual stories.
Since the 1990s he has documented night scenes on all continents, in stills, videos and 360-degree immersive media. His night sky imagery aims to reconnect humanity with the natural world, to reveal the wonders of science to the public and to connect cultures through common interest to the night sky.
Babak created The World at Night (TWAN) program in 2007 and has been directing a growing team of photographers in about 25 countries. His current project, Life at Night Atlas, reveals the values of natural dark nights and the global impact of light pollution on biodiversity.
He received the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award, the 2022 Royal Photography Society Award and the 2022 National Geographic Society Wayfinder Award. The International Astronomical Union has named the minor planet 276163 after Tafreshi.
