David Appell
david.appell@gmail.com
home page: http://www.davidappell.com

Keizer, Oregon

BACKGROUND: Writer and journalist with broad technical and scientific knowledge. Experience as an engineer, computer programmer, and scientist. Writing ability to communicate technical topics to experts and nonexperts alike. Education in physics, mathematics, and a little creative writing.

EXPERIENCE:

March 1998 to present
Freelance writer and journalist

• I write news and feature articles on science, technology, and other topics for a variety of periodicals. I’ve written for Scientific American, Physics World, Audubon, New Scientist, Discovery Channel Online, Science, Popular Science, The Industrial Physicist, Gale Research science and technology encylopedias, and many other publications. See my list of publications.
• I was the Internet’s first science blogger. I started blogging on December 29, 2001; my first page is archived here. In March 2003 I transitioned to my own domain, and the Wayback Machine contains other posts that appeared there. Since May 2006 I've been at davidappell.blogspot.com .
• I’ve gotten a few week-long fellowships for journalists -- the University of Maine in 2005, Oregon State University in 2008, Woods Hole in 2012 and NCAR in 2014. At Woods Hole it seems I asked too many questions, because the other reporters eventually complained about it. About asking too many questions.

1997-1998
PENNWELL PUBLISHING CO., Nashua, NH
Assistant Editor, Technology, Laser Focus World

• Wrote news articles and feature length articles to deadline for laser and electro-optics trade magazine and its associated newsletter, Laser Report. Specialization in lasers, space science, and fiber optics.
• Solicited and edited feature-length articles for the magazine.
• Attended conferences and survey journals and papers to keep industry audience abreast of technology and scientific developments and trends.
• Selected technologies to be listed in New Products section.
• I was fired several weeks after my boss was murdered by her husband, which threw everyone for a loop. I didn’t like it much there anyways, especially living in a small cubicle under fluorescent lights, and with my remaining supervisors being unenlightened drones. And I had spent the years 1994-1996 hiking about 1,800 miles on various parts of the Appalachian Trail, and after that a cubicle looked and felt like a death trap meant to capture spirited wolves. So I went to freelancing full-time.

1994-1997
Freelance writer and journalist

• Generated story ideas, queried editors, wrote news and feature articles to deadline, and worked with editors on revisions.
• Published in The Industrial Physicist, The Appalachian Trailway News, Poets & Writers, Backpacker, Internet World, The Phoenix Gazette, The Arizona Republic and other magazines, newspapers and literary journals. See list of publications .
• Correspondent for weekly town newspaper, The Williston Whistle, Williston, VT. That was fun – in retrospect.
• Associate Editor, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. My best work there was an interview with T. Coraghessan Boyle, conducted pool side at a Ritz Carlton somewhere in Phoenix.
• Proofreader, Academic and Administrative Documents, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.
• I did a lot of long-distance backpacking during this time with my girlfriend Sharon, first (in the summer of 1994) 350 miles on the Appalachian Trail from Delaware Water Gap, NJ to Manchester, VT, then, in March 1996 we began hiking at the AT’s beginning in Georgia. But despite a marvelous, unforgettable Tolkien-like adventure, we only made it 2/3rds of the way (1,500 miles) to Great Bennington, VT, tired and wipped out. I partially tore two ligaments in my left foot at about 550 miles in – I could still point to the spot in Virginia where the tear happened -- and then walked almost 1,000 miles on that. But eventually the pain got the best of me, and my foot became so swollen I couldn’t any longer lace up my boot. Stopping was and is still the biggest disappointment of my life – so big that I may have to go back to Georgia again someday and try anew.
• “Nostalgia locates desire in the past,” wrote Robert Haas, “where it suffers no active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly.” Wow is that ever true – but you have to learn it the hard way.

1993-1994
MCI COMMUNICATIONS CORP., Colorado Springs, CO
Senior Engineer

• Led systems engineering and coordinated systems development for Advantage 800, MCI's North American 800 service developed in alliance with Bell Canada.
• Managed design of service architecture, obtained development commitments, and planned coordination of network enhancements.
• Traveled too much in just nine months – from Colorado Springs to Montreal, Ottawa (lowest temperature I’ve ever experienced, at -30°C), Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, and back and forth all over. I decided to quit the third consecutive Friday night I found myself waiting for my luggage to come by on the carousel in the airport at Colorado Springs at midnight. I mean, really, that put me over the edge.

1991-1992
GOLD SYSTEMS, INC., Boulder, CO
Director

• Involved in all aspects of a start-up telecommunications software company, including business development, product development and project management.
• Project Manager and Lead Developer for a PC-based Voice Mail system. Designed service architecture, wrote software, and planned and executed system installation at Fayetteville Hospital, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Yes, I wrote a voice mail system. But installing it was a very different ball of wax.
• This company folded in 2014, after 16 years in operation, all due almost entirely to the heroic efforts of my good friend Terry Gold, who I met at AT&T when I was a project manager for fraud control on virtual private networks and he was my trustworthy programmer. The Gold Systems stock didn’t cash in as I (and he) hoped, but such it was a time.

1988-1991
AT&T BELL LABS

Project Manager, Business Communications Services, Bedminster, NJ

• Managed AT&T's Software Defined Network (SDN) Network Remote Access (NRA) service, a $200M revenue/yr. calling card service.
• Led large teams (5-40 people) of systems engineers, system managers, software developers, product managers and field technicians to develop new services, feature enhancements, and fraud control systems.
• Reduced fraud losses by about one million dollars a month while service grew by nearly 100%.
• In retrospect this was a great time where I felt important and right in the middle of things. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t left, and taken advantage of the opportunities that opened up there like a lotus flower. But the pressure was high and I got very sick after several months just because of the stress. I lived in a remodeled barn in quiet Califon, NJ that had been converted into the landlord’s painting gallery, while Bell Labs paid all my $1000/mth rent because I was on a job rotation. I was young and free, but stressed out – as my landlord said, they demanded their pound of flesh.

Systems Engineer, Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ

• Systems engineering of support systems, processes and operations for AT&T's Software Defined Network (SDN) provisioning and maintenance. Pretty boring.
• Wrote service plans to improve performance of AT&T work centers. Frankly, I had very little impact in this job, and was better suited to be the project manager I was to be in a few years. Meantime I played and umpired a lot of softball.

Other:
State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY
Research and Teaching Assistant, Department of Physics

• Performed research in cosmology and elementary particle physics while completing a Ph.D. in physics. Research was highly analytical and involved mathematical analysis followed by extensive numerical analysis and scientific programming (in UNIX/FORTRAN) of detailed calculations in quark-gluon interactions via quantum chromodynamics.
• 3½ years teaching undergraduate physics courses.
• Met many people from all around the world, especially after I fell into the social circle of a big group of mathematicians. I remember it as a great time, a letting loose socially while absorbing a huge amount intellectually. Wish I could go through that again knowing what I know now.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. in Physics, State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. Thesis research consisted of computational analysis of high-energy subnuclear structure. (Graduate advisor: George Sterman)
• M.A. in Physics, State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.
• B.S., double major in physics and mathematics, University of New Mexico.
• Graduate Program in Creative Writing (15 hours completed), Arizona State University.

AWARDS, ETC.

• Ocean Sciences Journalism Fellowship, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, September 2012.
• NCAR Science Journalism Fellowship, National Center for Atmospheric Research, July 2014.
• Several others I didn’t keep track of!

PUBLICATIONS