Alan Rubin is a meteorite researcher who recently retired from the University of California, where he worked as a research geochemist. He is a fellow of the Meteoritical Society and winner of the Nininger Meteorite Award and seven Griffith Observer science writing awards. He is the namesake of the garnet mineral rubinite and the main-belt asteroid 6227Alanrubin. He has one other published book – Disturbing the Solar System (Princeton, 2004).