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Kristin Abkemeier

“Thesis, antithesis, synthesis” is the theme of Kristin Abkemeier’s life in and out of science. Inspired by Sally Ride’s space shuttle flight, the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, and second-wave feminism. she pursued a career in physics at at Princeton, Cambridge, and the University of Chicago. Along the way, a life in physics came to look less appealing, so after defending her graduate dissertation she left science and moved to San Francisco with her husband.

After a stint in business software development, Kristin indulged a long-suppressed passion and talent by enrolling in art school for illustration—just about as diametrically far from physics as she could get. Perhaps a little too far removed—after a couple of years of the starving artist thing, she concluded that leveraging her science background into writing might be a more rewarding way to go.

Now Kristin is delighted to inaugurate the travel department for Inkling, because she thinks that science, art, and culture are even cooler when they’re all mixed together. She also has an essay in the just-published anthology She’s Such a Geek.

Kristin currently combines work in the public information office at the Exploratorium science museum with freelance writing and editing. And she still pages through her books of pen and ink cartoons by Saul Steinberg, Jean-Jacques Sempe, and Edward Sorel as inspiration for illustrating her own writing someday.

ALSO BY THIS TALENTED AUTHOR


The Buyer’s Guide to Nanotech Underwired
The Buyer’s Guide to Nanotech
New technology allows nanoparticles to dramatically magnify price tags - but what else do they do? Here's your guide
by Kristin Abkemeier

Margaret Wertheim: when science and crocheting collide Pop Culture
Margaret Wertheim: when science and crocheting collide
The science writer dishes on the politics of physics and reaching the masses with crocheted coral reefs.
by Kristin Abkemeier

The Big Physics Bus Tour Travel
The Big Physics Bus Tour
Inside the Nobel prize-winning wide-open spaces of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
by Kristin Abkemeier

Putting the “Ew!” in Museum Travel
Putting the “Ew!” in Museum
Our reporter went to the Meguro Parasitological Museum and all we got was this tapeworm
by Kristin Abkemeier

Flights of Fancy at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium Travel
Flights of Fancy at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium
A small New England science museum offers a window into nineteenth-century curiosity
by Kristin Abkemeier

Captain Cook’s Kiwi Adventures! Travel
Captain Cook’s Kiwi Adventures!
Our reporter tackles the knee-shredding descent to Captain Cook’s New Zealand hideout
by Kristin Abkemeier

A Trip to the Beijing Planetarium Travel
A Trip to the Beijing Planetarium
Our intrepid traveler solves the mystery of a 500 year old meteorite, an ancient goddess and modern art
by Kristin Abkemeier

Radioactive Beachcombing Travel
Radioactive Beachcombing
The Trinity Site in New Mexico is the perfect nuclear science tourist trap
by Kristin Abkemeier