About Me
I'm originally from South Jordan, Utah, the second of six children. We were all unrepentant bibliophiles, and I've written stories for as long as I can remember.
I graduated high school early and, at 16, entered the University of Utah’s Actor Training Program where I performed Shakespeare, Chekhov, Marlowe, and Mamet. After a year of theater studies, I switched fields and completed a Bachelor’s degree in physics. In 2000 I started graduate school at Tufts University where I earned a physics Master’s degree and PhD, doing research at the Fermilab National Particle Accelerator Laboratory and at a high-field magnet laboratory.
After school, I worked for eight years as a civilian researcher for the U.S. Navy where I wrote and ran wargames, assessed at-sea exercises, and deployed for weeks and months at a time aboard Naval warships. I lived and worked in Naples Italy for three years, did research in 15 African countries, and trained troops in Senegal, Gabon, and Cameroon. At the invitation of the Admiral of the Royal Danish Navy and the Admiral of the Royal Netherlands Navy, I conducted assessments and mission support in those countries. In 2014, INTERPOL brought me to their headquarters in Lyon France to present a workshop and lecture at their fingerprint conference.
In 2016 I moved to the Netherlands to work as a scientist for the European Space Agency’s Human Spaceflight program. I supported the research on the International Space Station. In 2023 I became a Technical Program Manager for Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence Science Research Laboratory, AI4Science. I also moonlight as a consultant for the commercial spaceflight industry.
I've always processed my experiences through writing. Fiction is particularly helpful because it helps me identify and tell the emotional truth of a situation while keeping my analytical proclivities at bay. My attempts at nonfiction become very acdemic - replete with facts and analyses, but absent the emotional and spiritual elements that are often the most essential parts of narrative truthtelling.
My short fiction earned recognition in the Santa Fe Writer Awards and the New Century Writer Awards. Other writing credits include a play produced at the University of Utah, numerous research papers, a chemistry patent, and wargames written for the Navy and other US government agencies. My original research and writing about Navy programs in Africa was used in US Department of State Congressional testimony. I authored a comic series developed by the European Space Agency, and (for the better part of a decade) my science writings were regularly read by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
I live in The Hague where I bicycle to work across the dunes, make wine from the grapes in my garden, and skate on frozen canals.
My agent is the fabulous Sharon Pelletier at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC.