G.Pascal Zachary

G. Pascal Zachary is a writer, journalist and historian of technological change. He is the author of "Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century" (1997) and editor of "The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush" (Columbia University Press, 2022). Drawing on his experience as a foreign correspondent, he wrote "Diversity Advantage: Multicultural Identity in the New World Economy" (2003). His book "Showstopper" (1994), is widely recognized as a classic portrayal of how software gets created. He taught at Arizona State University (2010-2020), Stanford University (2007-9) and the University of California at Berkeley (2001-2). In sub-Saharan Africa, for the Gates foundation, he researched technology and development (2007-2009), and for the National Science Foundation, he studied the rise of computer science in East Africa (2015-2019). Zachary has made more than 50 research visits to Africa and in 2012, he published a volume of essays, "Hotel Africa: the Politics of Escape.". He was a senior writer at the Wall Street Journal (1989-2002) and penned columns on innovation for The New York Times, Technology Review and Spectrum magazine. For the PBS network, he co-wrote Code Rush, on the rise and fall of Netscape (2000). His memoir, "Married to Africa: a love story" was published in 2009. At Arizona State University, Zachary created a masters certificate in "literary nonfiction" and taught "the Quest for Enhanced Consciousness, from the Greeks to Google" to students in the Honors College.

In September of 2025, Zachary published his first collection of fiction, 24 short stories in all, under the title, "Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain: Stories of Innocence Lost." Ken Wells, author of the novels "Meely LaBauve" and "Swamped," praised Zachary's collection of stories for its “vivid characters, exotic locales, compelling, quirky plot lines that keep you turning page after page. Serious literary chops are at work here. Zachary has put together a terrific collection circling and engaging worlds of hope, love, angst, turmoil and the complexity and marvel of being human.”

Zachary lives in northern California with his wife, Chizo Okon of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Zachary was born in Brooklyn and educated in New York State, where he obtained a degree in philosophy from the University at Albany. His earliest published writings appeared in the legendary Berkeley Barb and then, as a staff writer, in the worker-owned "Santa Barbara News & Review" and the acclaimed alt-weekly, Willamette Week of Portland, Oregon.