Meet our Hosts

Trace Dominguez

Trace Dominguez is an award-winning and spirited science communicator, on-camera host, producer, and podcaster. He’s spent a decade teaching viewers about all aspects of science, writing scripts to explore biology, engineering, psychology, history, earth science, technology, futurism, and the nature of the universe itself. As a prolific writer and energetic presenter, he strives to inspire everyone to seek knowledge and share it with others.

Trace is best known for hosting, writing, developing, and producing the daily science series Seeker. Since its launch in 2012, the property has earned more than one billion views, and gained tens of millions of followers worldwide. He’s also known as the creator and writer of SciencePlus, a video and podcast series of comprehensive conversations on the essences of science, engineering, physics and humanity.

Today, Trace is the creator and producer of Uno Dos of Trace a short-form video series following the spirit of inquiry in topics across the sciences. He spends each week researching and sharing this journey of curiosity with others.

As a host, Trace has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Seeker, NowThis, DNews, Animal Planet, and more. As a producer, Trace has collected awards & nominations across both traditional and digital media, including a Webby for being the first team to capture a full 360-degree video from a weather balloon as it ascended into the stratosphere.

Trace has a B.S. in Psychology from Western Michigan University and an M.A. in Strategic Communication from American University. He lives in San Francisco with his fiancée Flavia and their cat, Carmela.

Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D.

Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D., an expert in the field of astrophysics, serves as a professor and the inaugural Bjorn Lamborn Endowed Chair in Astrophysics at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). He has held numerous leadership positions in academia, including serving as the Dean of FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. After receiving his Ph.D. in Astronomy at Yale in 1992, he spent seven years as a postdoctoral researcher and a Hubble Fellow at Kitt Peak National Observatory and San Francisco State University.

Dr. Sarajedini spent two years at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT as an Assistant Professor before moving to the University of Florida in 2001. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2001, a University of Florida Research Professor award in 2006, and was the principal investigator of a large Treasury project with the Hubble Space Telescope starting in 2014. Dr. Sarajedini has over 500 publications, which have over 11,000 citations. Of these publications, over 200 have appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. His Hirsch Index according to Google Scholar is 45.

His research is focused on resolved stellar populations in Local Group galaxies. These include field stars, open and globular clusters in the Milky Way, M31, M33, the Magellanic Clouds, and the numerous nearby dwarf galaxies. When we resolve individual stars in these systems, we can apply our knowledge of star formation and stellar evolution to understanding the process of galaxy formation and evolution.