Writer
Dr. Jonathan Swift
Jon was born in New York, but spent the vast majority of his childhood in Southern California. The value and wonder of the natural world was instilled in him at an early age, and the ocean took on a huge presence in his life that has never waned. A combination of family hardships that included the death of his father when he was 8 years old, and the freedoms associated with adolescence in the 1980’s facilitated an ever deeper connection with nature and music. These connections were at the heart of his decision to study and conduct research in astrophysics at the highest levels of academia, and to have a parallel career in music where his songs and compositions have been released in a number of albums, EPs and soundtracks.
Following Jon’s PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, he held postdoctoral research positions at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii and at Caltech separated by a couple years working as a professional musician. The exoplanet project that he was project managing at Caltech was moved to Harvard in 2014, and he was offered a position to continue his work in exoplanet science at Harvard. However, a brief visit to the Thacher School in 2013 led to a job offer that turned out to be too enticing to turn down.
Jon was offered a unique opportunity to renovate a historic observatory that had fallen into disuse that was first built by famous astronomer George Abell on the Thacher campus in 1964. This renovation was to be accompanied by a unique, homegrown curriculum for high school students that included meaningful research as both a motivation and a reward for inspired students.
At the Thacher School since 2014, Jon, now 53, lives with his wife Gloria and two children, Annika and Ansel, the inspirations for this book.
Illustrator
Erin Pata
Erin Pata has been an artist, a cowgirl, and mother to three remarkable human beings, for the past twenty-five years on a fourth-generation butterbean farm and cattle ranch, along the pristine, but blustery, Pacific coastline. Her journey started in small-town Ohio, and wound its way through the East Coast’s biggest cities, then into farming and ranching in the Jalama Valley of California.
Since that wasn't rural enough, she most recently settled into the mountains of Montana to a small cabin, smack dab in the middle of the purest wilderness she could find ...the Yukon-to-Yellowstone wildlife corridor. As a life-time freelance graphic designer, she specializes in small, do-it-yourself operations who need custom, unique-personality designs and drawings for their ideas.
Erin continues to live out her dreams fueled by freedom, beauty, and curiosity, which has now evolved into counting megafauna for Glacier National Park, and backpacking to the summits of some of America’s greatest mountains. Follow her art and adventures, small town living life and game camera here:
