Willie Wei-Hock Soon (born September 30, 1965) is a Malaysian astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who was long employed as a part-time externally funded researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. Soon is a anthropogenic climate change denier, disputing the scientific understanding of climate change, and contends that most global warming is caused by solar variation rather than by human activity. He co-wrote a paper whose methodology was widely criticised by the scientific community. Climate scientists such as Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies have refuted Soon's arguments, and the Smithsonian does not support his conclusions. He is nonetheless frequently cited by politicians opposed to climate-change legislation. Soon co-authored The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun–Earth Connection with Steven H. Yaskell. The book treats historical and proxy records of climate change coinciding with the Maunder Minimum, a period from 1645 to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare. From 2005 to 2015, Soon had received over $1.2 million from the fossil fuel industry, while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his work. Of this industry funding, over half went on the Smithsonian's facility operating costs, with the remainder going to Soon as his salary. Early life and education 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. 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. His doctoral thesis was titled Non-equilibrium kinetics in high-temperature gases. He received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Scholastic Award in 1989 and the Rockwell Dennis Hunt Scholastic Award from the University of Southern California in 1991. Career After completing his Ph.D., Soon took up a post-doctoral research position at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. He has since been doing research there in astrophysics and Earth science, now as an externally funded employee. He also was an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory a senior scientist at a conservative think tank, the now defunct George C. Marshall Institute, the chief science adviser