I am a field geologist with thirty-five years of field experience in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

I earned a B.S cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.A., M. Phil., and PhD in Geological Sciences from Columbia University.  My fieldwork on earthquake hazards and archaeological settlement patterns in Alaska and Chile is featured in the internationally broadcast, award-winning PBS series “Fire on the Rim.”

A forthcoming novel, Cradle of Storms, is based on a little-known true story from World War II in Alaska in which an entire village of civilians disappeared. Using a dual time-line, the story tracks the tragedy of the Attu villagers in from 1942-45 and the bittersweet consequences fifty years later.

Cradle of Storms has been shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger (2023) and the HNS (2026-- historical mystery category.)

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 I am Professor of Earth Sciences at the City College of New York. A member of CWA, HNS, AWP, IWWG, SinC, and the Columbia Fiction Foundry, I live in the lower Hudson valley of New York with my oceanographer husband, Joe Stennett, and donkey, Ruby.