William Sheehan retired after 30 years in practice as a psychiatrist, earned his MD degree (1987) and completed his psychiatric residency (1992) from the University of Minnesota Medical School. He has been a lifelong amateur astronomer and a historian and author of books on astronomy and history of astronomy including: Planets & Perception (Tucson, 1988), Worlds in the Sky (Tucson, 1992), The Immortal Fire Within: the life and work of Edward Emerson Barnard (Cambridge, UK, 1995), The Planet Mars (Tucson, 1996), In Search of Planet Vulcan (with Richard Baum) (New York, 1997), Epic Moon (with Thomas A. Dobbins) (Richmond, VA, 2001), Mars: the lure of the red planet (with Stephen James O'Meara (Amherst, NY, 2001), Transits of Venus (with John Westfall) (New York, 2004), Galactic Encounters (with Christopher Conselice) (Springer, 2015), Celestial Shadows: eclipses, transits and occultations (with John Westfall, 2015),
