Catherine Asaro has authored about thirty books, including science fiction, thrillers, and fantasy. Her works The Quantum Rose and “The Spacetime Pool” both won the Nebula® Award, and she is a multiple Hugo nominee. Among her many other distinctions, she is a multiple winner of the AnLab from Analog magazine. Her upcoming books are The Vanished Seas (Baen, July 2020), and the eBook Lightning Strike Book II. Taken together, Lightning Strike Book I and Book II form a revised and expanded version of Catch the Lightning.
Catherine has a doctorate in chemical physics and masters in physics, both from Harvard, and a BS in chemistry from UCLA. Her paper “Complex Speeds and Special Relativity” (The American Journal of Physics, April 1996) forms the basis for some of the science in her fiction. She directed the Chesapeake Math Program for many years, serving as a teacher and coach in math, physics, and chemistry. Her students distinguished themselves in many national programs, including the USA Mathematical Olympiad, MathCounts, the USA Physics Olympiad, and the Harvard-MIT Math Contest.
Catherine has appeared as a speaker at many institutions, including Harvard, the National Academy of Sciences, and the US Naval Academy, and she has appeared as a Guest of Honor at science fiction cons across the US and abroad, including the National Science Fiction Conventions of both Denmark and New Zealand. She served two terms as president for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and is a member of SIGMA, a think tank that advises the government as to future trends affecting national security. She also appears as a vocalist at clubs and conventions. Her most recent piece is the Celtic-themed song Ancient Ages, written by science fiction author Arlan Andrews. She danced for about 35 years in ballet and jazz. She and her husband, John Kendall Cannizzo, were married thirty-three years until he passed. They have one daughter, a mathematician and ballet dancer.
