Dr. Stephen Granade
Dr. Stephen Granade (he/they) is a physicist, lecturer, and author living in Huntsville, Alabama, the city with a Saturn V rocket in its skyline. He specializes in robotics and sensors, and organizes the science track at Dragon Con, a yearly science fiction convention in Atlanta. His sensors have read fingerprints from 10-feet away, tracked drones, and guided the shuttle to Hubble. He was most recently seen on NASA's Unexplained Files.
My physics PhD is from Duke University, where we cooled atoms down using lasers. That’s not as ridiculous an idea as it sounds, honest. We used really high-powered lasers, which was all fun and games until one set me on fire. I’ve worked on space sensors and gotten to build things that flew on orbit. I never got to be an astronaut like I had planned when I was 12, but seeing something in space that you built with your hands is a great consolation prize. These days I work on cameras and other sensors for robots. It’s the kind of work that makes for a great conversation starter.