Dr. Jarita Holbook (they/them/their) is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Holbrook is an interdisciplinary scientist focused on cultural astronomy with an expertise on African Indigenous Astronomy. They achieved a BS in Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), MS in Astronomy from San Diego State University (their first African American graduate in Astronomy), and PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (their first African American graduate in Astronomy & Astrophysics).

While active in astrophysics, Holbrook studied stellar death and stellar birth with a focus on the things between the stars: gas, ice and dust. As a postdoc, Holbrook transitioned to the social sciences through a National Science Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Center for the Cultural Studies of Science, Technology & Medicine at UCLA and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. Slightly over a decade ago, Holbrook started including studies of astrophysicists along with film making into their research portfolio. Holbrook focuses on the lived experiences of underrepresented astrophysicists, identity, discrimination and the processes of inclusion and exclusion in astrophysics.

Holbrook has made two award winning films: Black Suns – An Astrophysics Adventure and Hubble’s Diverse Universe. The Tenerife episode of their YouTube series, The Science Tourists, won a webisode excellence prize.

Holbrook is the current president of the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC) and chair of the working group on Ethnoastronomy and Intangible Heritage of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). In recognition of service to the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Holbrook was named a Legacy Fellow. Holbrook was the first African American to lead a division of the AAS when the chair of their Historical Astronomy Division (HAD). Holbrook established the AAS Oral History Project, as well as, in South Africa started the Astronomy Oral History Project, the latter funded by South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF). Holbrook previously held faculty positions in the Physics & Astronomy Department at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, USA.