Nerding in Public

What happens when you let natural curiosity get behind the wheel of a car? A 1,400 mile roadtrip from the Canadian border to the Mexican border through eight (EIGHT) National Parks is what happens. My best friend/co-author/blog editor/co-conspirator and I are working on a book about just that. This summer we prototyped our science-themed roadtrip with a trip to Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Next summer, we're off on an eight week adventure that will take us and our unstoppable drive to pester people who know things through seven more parks including Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. While we prep for the adventure of a lifetime, you can see all the shenanigans from our Badlands trip on instagram and tumblr. 

Kennedy Space Center for PGAV Destinations

Exhibit writer, image researcher and licenser

Ok, I didn’t get to go to space. But as the writer and image researcher for the $100 million, 70,000 square foot museum that was built to celebrate the incredible achievements of Space Shuttle Atlantis, I think I got as close as I ever will. Technically, I worked on her final mission and I bought this patch in the gift shop to prove it.

American Museum of Natural History

Interpretive Editor

These two special exhibits taught New Yorkers important lessons. Such as: pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, and you should avoid venomous sea snails generally, but we might be able to make some medicine out them. Now, they’re off to tour the world (the exhibits, not the sea snails). In preparation for the copy to be made into panels with multiple languages, I edited, condensed, and rewrote the exhibit text.

I’m not sure I could be any more obsessed with being a volunTREEr for the nyc tree census. Yup, it's just like the people census, but with trees! If there’s anything better than taking measurements and recording data about every single street tree in nyc, I don’t know what it is. Also, peep that sweet safety vest.

Photo credit: tree-lover Corey Leamon

Team Science at AMNH for Museum Hack

Rogue Tour Guide

What’s better than two hours of high-energy, snark-filled museum gossip? Literally nothing. As a tour guide for Museum Hack, I bounce around AMNH and tell outrageous (and totally true) stories about daring expeditions, creatures that weigh as much as the entire NFL, and the essential qualities of dinosaurs. We see the highlights as well as the un-highlights, all while playing games designed to get people to really look and think about the museum displays. Why, you ask? Because museums (especially AMNH) are fucking awesome, and I want to the whole world to know it!

American Museum of Natural History

Writer and Assistant Producer

The oldest hall at AMNH--the Hall of the Northwest Coast Indians--is in need of some updates! The project is now in full swing, and I helped create the prototypes that brought it there. Working with a team, I researched, developed, and wrote content for a digital touch screen kiosk and mobile app tour. I also served as an assistant producer for video interviews with scholars and Native artists (one of whom drew this postcard for me!).

Published December 2015 for NSTMF

It seems logical enough: the humble eight planets swirling around our wonderfully stable star cannot possibly be the only planets in the universe. It’s a rather big place, afterall, and home to billions and billions of stars. And yet for the vast majority of human history, no one had ever seen or otherwise measured the existence of such a thing. Exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—had to be out there somewhere, but where?

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Image credit front: ⓒ ESO/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)
Image credit this page: ⓒ NASA/JPL-Caltech

John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum for Westerman Designs

Exhibit writer

Decided to dust off the ol’ MA in History to write and image research the text for this special exhibit, part of the redesign of the JFKHM. Several biographies, days of archival photo research, and a few thousand words later, people are reading every word in the exhibit and I can’t wait to dive back in and learn more about the Kennedys for the next special exhibit.

Cover photo credit: JFK Library and Museum

Local Projects for the American Museum of Natural History

Content Developer, Script Writer, Researcher

Have you ever wanted to tour the fossil halls at AMNH as if you’re a dinosaur? How about wandering the Hall of North American Mammals looking for ways to uncover your secret identity as a bear? Of course you have! Now you can, thanks to the augmented reality experience that I scripted for the reboot of AMNH’s Explorer app. I also helped create and organize the content for objects in the app.

This photo is me touching the fossil imprint of dinosaur skin. You can’t write from the perspective of a dinosaur without a bit of cosmic communing, you know?

Photo credit: Edward Blake

Published December 2015 for NSTMF

From New York to California, beekeepers have arrived at their hives to find them silent and abandoned. But why? The mystery has deepened even as the crisis has worsened and grown more bizarre. Perhaps most strangely of all, there are no dead bees around the hives. It’s as if they just vanished.

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Image credit: ⓒ Kathy Keatly Garvey

The National Science and Technology Medals Foundation for Local Projects

Writer

NSTMF needed a new website; I had a burning desire to write about the fascinating people that win America’s Nobel Prize (a whole bunch of whom have won Nobel Prizes). It was a perfect match! I wrote 34 profiles of Laureates doing some of the best, most impactful, ludicrously amazing science in this country. THEN I turned their really cool science into timely, fun, and interesting long form articles. Read them right here!

John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum for Westerman Designs

Content Developer and Image Researcher

A sequel to the quite well received JFK/RFK exhibit, this special exhibit for JFKHM takes a look at the woman behind the throne, Rose Kennedy. As the indomitable matron of the Kennedy clan, she made her impressive and incredibly driven family what they were. I probably wouldn't have done well as one of her brood, but I did quite well with the background research, exhibit outline, and photo research for this exhibit. 

Photo credits: JFK Library and Museum

Discovery Park of America for Thinc Design

Exhibit Writer, Image Researcher and Licenser, Content Developer

There’s an awful lot you can squeeze into 52,000 square feet. The fine folks at the Discovery Park of America set up some exhibits about everything from from dinosaurs, to military history, to Native peoples, to energy and electricity. I wrote the label copy and oversaw the image research for just about every inch of it. If I’m being honest, I loved nothing more than getting to write about Pluto in the morning and the physics of bridge building in the afternoon.

Published December 2015 for NSTMF

You’ve probably said it more than once, we all have. You step out of your house and into a wind-whipped snow storm or a crushingly humid heatwave. “Thanks, global warming,” you say half jokingly as you ready yourself to face the weather. But is that weather really from global warming? What does living in a warming world really mean?

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Image credit: NASA

Published December 2015 for NSTMF

There are huge mountain ranges on Earth that we’ve never seen; towering volcanoes that spew molten rock whose locations are still a mystery; enormous, gaping canyons that have gone largely unexplored. This is the sea floor—the last great uncharted territory on Earth.

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Image credit: NSTMF

Published December 2015 for NSTMF

We've all been there: palms damp with sweat as you realize the Tantive IV is being chased by the biggest ship you've ever seen. Your hands grip the movie theater armrest as the Millennium Falcon jumps hyperspace. Your heart races as Luke Skywalker fires his torpedoes and the Death Star explodes...

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Image credit: Lucas Film LTD