Kiragg Plateau, Norway (Dreamtime)
WRITING
Words alone can be a provocative and potent force.
Portfolio - Scripts for audio, film/video, and multi-media productions; feature-length articles and case studies for non-profits and technology publications; case studies, bylines, and press releases; dot.com and dot.org web copy; educational and corporate collateral.
Inspiration - The environment and science: humanistic, poetic, passionate, irreverent, wrestling with the spirit and mystery of it all. Loren Eiseley, Lewis Thomas, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, Elizabeth Kolbert.
Interests - Projects related to the environment, science, education, renewable energy, appropriate technologies, and sustainability in all of its various forms.
Selected Science/Technology Stories
Catching the Wind with CAE - A story about a revolutionary wing-sail sailboat design.
“Going fast—really fast—has always captured the imagination of engineers and inventors. In the sailing world, the speed record was most recently set in September of 2009 by the hydrofoil-design trimaran, l’Hydroptère… ”
There’s a New Twist in Wind Blades - A feature about a new sweep-twist composite turbine blade design.
“The basic physics and economics of wind turbine blades are relatively simple. For one, their power output is roughly proportional to the square of blade length. This relationship pushes designers to create increasingly longer blades for harvesting additional kilowatts. Navigating a maze of engineering challenges can lead to interesting design directions…”
Simulating Spacecraft Launch and Re-Entry - An article about European Space Agency new reusable vehicle designs.
“For a spacecraft to be reusable, it must first withstand a controlled explosion powerful enough to propel it through the earth’s gravitational grip. Then to come home intact, it must survive the blast furnace of atmospheric re-entry with temperatures hot enough to melt steel…”
Blue Sky Solar Racing Team - A story about a university solar vehicle team.
“Crossing Australia has always presented challenges. The interior is vast, harsh, and mostly unpopulated. It took six expeditions and more than three years before the first inland explorer established a route across the continent in 1861. More recently, university-student teams race along much of the same route in sci-fi-like vehicles designed and built entirely by them and powered only by the sun…”
Selected Not-for-Profit Articles
Back to the Future - A feature about how an affordable housing group and a local food coop looked to the past to shape the future.
“Brattleboro’s downtown district didn’t always end at Whetstone Brook on lower Main Street. In the first half of the 1900s it extended past the bridge, around the Coop parking lot, and up the hill beyond the South Main intersection to the spot where Best Muffler now stands…”
The ABCs of Recycling in Boston Schools - An article chronicling how Mass Audubon and Boston’s Public Schools teamed up to launch a single-stream recycling program.
“Over the past fifteen years, there has been no shortage of interest in recycling in Boston’s public schools. But program peaks have been isolated or short-lived, for the most part, and punctuated by longer valleys. Looking at the school recycling timeline, it’s become apparent that transforming recycling interest into reality in the context of one of the nation’s largest school systems is not, by any means, elementary…”