Hugh Powell

Many years ago, deep in the Panamanian rain forest, Hugh Powell vowed never, ever, to go to grad school. Since then, he has been twice: first to study woodpeckers in Montana and then to learn science writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In between, he did some hard time in the copyediting trenches of an ornithology journal, where he learned to detect typos by smell and pleaded with scientists to stop using "event" as a suffix.

Now a freelance science writer in Santa Cruz, California, he balances earning money with more rewarding pursuits such as tidepooling, birdwatching and surfing. He has a deep love for junk food, including anything that can be both put on a stick and deep-fried (as with the Twinkie, above). In addition to writing for money, he also gives it away for free at his blog about the ocean, Surf.Bird.Scribble.

Inkling consideres itself lucky as all get out to have Hugh as its Copy Editor.