What I do
I especially enjoy covering researchers while they are doing their work -- whether it’s in a lab or an observatory or out in the field, digging for fossils, or testing equipment in the desert for future Mars rovers, or searching for the Loch Ness Monster, or building the next generation of rockets -- and writing about firsthand experiences that convey the excitement and the challenges of actually doing cutting-edge research and engineering.
- I’ve taken part in fossil digs in Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Nova Scotia, with renowned paleontologists including Robert Bakker, Neil Shubin, Hans Sues, and Martin Lockley.
- I’ve camped along with expeditions in the heart of the Atacama desert in Chile (see photo above), by NASA scientists testing equipment and sensors designed to search for signs of life on Mars.
- I’ve spent time with leading researchers on communication with animals, including Irene Pepperberg and her parrots and Louis Herman and his dolphins.
- I covered dozens of space shuttle launches and landings, as well as launches of Atlas, Delta, and Titan rockets, and all of the flights of Spaceship One.
- I was the only journalist to cover the Biosphere 2 two-year mission from the inside, spending 24 hours sealed up inside the B2 Test Module for a magazine feature while the 8 Biospherians were nearing the end of their closure.
- I’ve ridden on NASA’s zero-gravity “vomit comet” twice, covering teams of students carrying out experiments on board.
- I rode along with a research team at Loch Ness searching for signs of the fabled monster, with a line of boats armed with sonar to scan the entire loch exhaustively from one end to the other. No monsters found.
- I’ve spent time, sometimes overnight, at some of the world’s leading observatories, including those on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Very Large Telescope in Chile, Kitt Peak, Mount Palomar, Mount Wilson, Mount Graham, and the MMT.
- I’ve toured major renewable energy installations, including onshore and offshore wind farms, solar photovoltaic and solar thermal farms, conventional and engineered geothermal power plants, and nuclear plants.
- And now, what’s next?