About me

I’m a Canadian sea captain and PhD biologist with a physics degree who teaches biomimetics and engineering design in a landlocked little town in Germany. I’ve studied whales, jellyfish, sea turtles and everything they eat. I’m a sea kayaking instructor and was once the “mayor” of the biggest summertime settlement on the north shore of Queen Charlotte Strait, British Columbia. I’ve seen flying fish race ahead of my boat in Baja, Mexico, and avoided a brush with a stone fish diving in the Red Sea. I teach physics, biology, engineering and science communication, oftentimes all in one lecture. My first real job was designing women’s underwear, my first scientific publication was a poem, and along the way somewhere I was briefly a professor of geography, but despite graduating 11 PhDs and publishing 25 peer-reviewed research papers, really I’m best known for running a submarine race. I’ve been a CEO, a dean and a director of studies, landed a million euros in research grants, published 28 papers and a patent. I’ve burned out twice and had a stroke, but they still fear me on the football field. I was an Eagle Scout, a refugee and a short order cook. Now I’m nearly fifty and enjoying the living in life.