Willie Soon was born in
Kangar, Malaysia, in 1966. He attended Khoon Aik Primary School in Kangar,
Perlis, then Sekolah Menengah Syed Sirajudin Secondary School in
Jejawi, Perlis, and Sekolah Menengah Dato Sheikh Ahmad Secondary School in
Arau, Perlis.
[1]
To further his education he emigrated to the United States in 1980 and attended the
University of Southern California, receiving a B.Sc. in 1985, followed by a M.Sc. in 1987 and then a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering [with distinction] in 1991.
[12][13]His doctoral thesis was titled Non-equilibrium kinetics in high-temperature gases.
[14]
He received the
IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Scholastic Award in 1989 and the
Rockwell Dennis HuntScholastic Award from the University of Southern California in 1991.
[15]
After completing his Ph.D., Soon took up a post-doctoral research position at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He has been doing research in
astrophysics and
Earth science there as an externally funded employee since 1991.
[1]He also was an astronomer at the
Mount Wilson Observatory[16]a senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute think tank,
[16][17]the chief science adviser to the oil industry-funded
Science and Public Policy Institute,
[18]and an
Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Science and Environmental Studies of the
University of Putra, Malaysia.
[19]In 2004, Soon received the "
Petr Beckmann Award for outstanding contributions to the defense of scientific truth" from the conservative
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness,
[20]group"In 2014, Soon received the "Courage in Defense of Science award" from a conservative
think tank, the now defunct
George C. Marshall Institute.
[23]
