Valentin D. Ivanov is a Bulgarian astronomer working in the European Southern Observatory. His primary research areas are: star clusters, formation of stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets. He was born in the town of Bourgas, Bulgaria in 1967, obtained his MS in physics and astronomy at the University of Sofia in 1992. He earned a PhD at the University of Arizona, Tucson, U.S. in 2001. He became a fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), on La Silla and Cerro Paranal and 2001 and a staff astronomer in 2003. Science fiction is his hobby. He has about thirty stories appearing in Bulgaria and a few in various English language venues. His stories has been translated in German and Russian as well. In 2006, together with Kiril Dobrev, he has published a science fiction story collection in Bulgarian.