Bio:J. R. Pournelle

Dr. J.R. (Jennifer) Pournelle, PhD, is an archaeologist and anthropologist best known for reconstructing landscapes surrounding ancient cities. A Research Fellow in the University of South Carolina’s Environment and Sustainability Program and Rule of Law Collaborative, and  past Mesopotamian Fellow of the American School of Oriental Research, her work in Turkey, Iraq, and the Caucasus has been featured by the National Science Foundation, in The New York Times and Science magazine, and on The Discovery Channel and National Geographic Television. In a former life, she received numerous decorations for service as a United States Army intelligence officer and arms control negotiator, and directed reconstruction work in Iraq as a civilian. She is the author of Outies, and the 2010 recipient of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Book Prize, for Excavations, A City Cycle, released by the University of South Carolina Press in October, 2011.

The daughter of SF writer Jerry E. Pournelle, the younger Pournelle engages similar themes (war and its aftermath, environmental constraints, aliens encounters), but with a very different point of view and writing style. She summarizes their differences thusly: "We both believe profoundly in the individual right to be left the hell alone. But we also disagree profoundly about who it is that's most likely to mess with that right, and fundamentally about the best way to stop it happening."