Newt Gingrich served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. In 1995, Time magazine selected him as the Person of the Year for "exceptional leadership."

Gingrich received a B.A. degree from Emory University in 1965, and an M.A. in 1968 and a Ph.D in 1971 in Modern European History from Tulane University. Gingrich taught history at University of West Georgia from 1970 to 1978. Gingrich served Georgia's Sixth District in the House of Representatives from 1979 to 1999. He was co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Space Caucus.

Gingrich has authored sixteen books, ten of which have reached the New York Times best-seller list. His non-fiction works include Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future (discussing the vast potential of high technology, 1986), To Renew America (1996), Saving Lives and Saving Money (his vision of a modern health care system, 2003), Winning the Future (2005), A Contract with the Earth (2007), and Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works (2008).

Gingrich has also written several novels with co-author William R. Forstchen in the genre of alternative history (which examines how a change in a single decision might have profoundly altered history). Three of these novels revolve around the Civil War — Gettysburg (2003), Grant Comes East (2004), and Never Call Retreat (2005) — and three of them revolve around World War II — 1945 (1995), Pearl Harbor (2007), and Days of Infamy (2008).

Gingrich is a Board Member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Founder of the Center for Health Transformation, and Co-chairman of the National Commission for Quality Long-term Care. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Professor at the National Defense University, an Editorial Board Member of the Johns Hopkins University journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and an Honorary Chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance.

Gingrich is a leading advocate of increased Federal funding for basic science research.  In 2001, he was the recipient of the Science Coalition's first Science Pioneer award, given to him for his outstanding contributions to educating the public about science and its benefits to society. He has also been a keynote speaker at the International Space Development Conference.