Matthias Schmitt is the founder of Stargazing Zion that gives people a multi-faceted experience of the cosmos under some of the darkest skies in America. Schmidt is also the sky coordinator at Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah. He is an avid eclipse chaser with observations in Oregon, Argentina, Oman, and other locations.
Matthias Schmidt was previously the executive producer of the award-winning animated kids STEM TV show Space Racers that is shown around the world in 35 different languages. Recipient of a NASA grant to educate the next generation of space explorers, Space Racers follows the cadets of Stardust Space Academy on their fun adventures through the Solar System.
After receiving a high school graduation prize for physics, Matthias took a detour into finance, barely escaped the Black Hole of "careers without meaning" and used the gravitational slingshot around the accretion disk to find his way back into astronomy and physics.
His favorite observation objects of the outer sciences are eclipses, when he doesn't forget to take off the solar filter during totality, and he likes to explore the inner sciences through Buddhism.
Matthias Schmitt at an astronomy outreach event in New York City
