Chris Jackolski

I was born and raised in Matawan, New Jersey by a pack of FBI agents.
Yes. My father, mother, and grandfather were all agents. (Good
agents; better people.) As a direct result of this upbringing, I am
one of those annoying Americans who believe that freedom and security
are not mutually exclusive. I have a copy of the Constitution hanging
in my room to prove it.

Jersey was the epicenter of 80's culture, and as a child I could be
seen lip-syncing to the likes of Bon Jovi and Springsteen. Our family
then moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia (pronounced locally as "Vah
Beach") when I was 10. We remain on Vah Beach to this day, soaking up
the sun and bothering the tourists.

Astronomy, especially the solar system, astounded me from an early age.
Physics made sense to me in high school, so I majored in physics and
astronomy at Appalachian State University, up in the kilometer-high
town of Boone, North Carolina. I've been involved in some research. I
assisted my astronomy professor Dr. Richard Gray with his work on
NASA's Nearby Stars Project, and last summer I worked at Lowell
Observatory on their near-Earth object search (LONEOS). I can
therefore point out all the flaws in killer asteroid movies . . . but I
love'em! (The work at Lowell is through the Northern Arizona
University REU: http://www.phy.nau.edu/~reu/)