My name is Lisa and I am a storyteller. I write stories for kids exploring science, technology and the natural world with lively, relatable characters. I also write non-fiction articles and books with a dash of story.

 

Projects

Published ArticleS

 

Insect or LeaF?

is in the April 2024 issue of High Five Magazine. This article for young readers shows how some insects look like leaves.

Science@Work:

Edith Widder; Marine biologist, deep sea explorer

is in the July/August 2023 issue of Cricket’s Muse Magazine. I interviewed Dr. Edith Widder about her work studying the ways in which deep ocean animals use bioluminescence to communicate and how she used this knowledge on an expedition to capture the first ever footage of a giant squid in it’s natural habitat.

Looking for Life on Mars

is a feature article in the February 2023 issue of Cricket’s Muse Magazine. The article explains how a technique discovered almost 100 years ago in India is being used by the Perseverance rover to look for signs of ancient life on Mars.

Science@Work: Dakshita Khurana, Quantum Crytographer

is in the January 2023 issue of Cricket’s Muse Magazine. I interviewed Dakshita Khurana on how she became interested in quantum cryptography and how it works. How do we know if a stranger is eavesdropping on our texts?

A Closer Look: The Colorful Science of Decoding Starlight

is in the May/June 2022 issue of Cricket’s Muse Magazine. This article describes how astronomers use star spectra to learn about the Universe.

 

Book Manuscripts

If You were a dragonfly

Explores what life would be like if you started life underwater, caught your breakfast on the wing and could fly 35 miles an hour.

Blastoff to An Extraordinary Exoplanet

What if you were about to be the first visitor to a newly discovered exoplanet?

Secrets of the Stars

describes the fascinating ways astronomers have used star spectra to understand our Universe. Starlight tells us about stars, their temperature, their lifespan and their composition. The change in starlight tells us about their motion. Where is that star going? Wobbling starlight can show us if exoplanets circle a distant stars. With the latest spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope, we hope to find evidence of life on distant exoplanets.

Rock, Tree and the Arrow of Time

is a humorous middle grade informational fiction novel about nature, time, and the nature of time. Rock, a curmudgeon with a soft heart, has the superpower of wisdom, gained by communing with the universe, while Tree, a young and excitable juniper, has dual superpowers of empathy and curiosity. This odd couple survives harsh mountain winters, lightning strikes, and a bluebird invasion, all the while engaging young readers in the world of physics and nature in a unique way.

(This is a work in progress)

Lizards Who Love Math

is a visual guide to thinking about pre-algebra. Lizards living among lava rocks in the Mojave desert discuss negative numbers, primes, fractions and many more math concepts in a funny and accessible way.

(This is a work in progress)

Podcast

Solve It For Kids

Author Jennifer Swanson invited me as a guest on Solve It For Kids . In this ongoing podcast, Jennifer and her cohost, Jeff Gonyea, talk to engineers and scientists and about real world problems they have solved. I was honored to asked to talk about How Computer Brains Are Made. We discussed my work as a semiconductor engineer making microprocessors.

 
 

Additional Articles

  • Living Light: How Ocean Animals Send Messages Using Bioluminescence

  • The Power of Binary Code: How Zeros and Ones Create Worlds

  • Decoding Barcodes

  • Space Clouds: Where Stars are Born and Die

  • Bending Light: The Physics Behind Why Things Aren’t Always Where They Appear To Be

  • Odd or Even?

  • The Ancient Bristlecone Pines: What Do the World’s Oldest Trees Have To Tell Us About Climate, History, and Longevity? 

  • Animal Signs

  • Exploring a Lava Tube Cave