Bart Kemper

Professionally, he designs submarines, spacecraft, systems for tunneling machines, and then it gets weird. Kinda like Doctor Evil, but without the extra time in university.

Bart bounced around the globe as a child, including three years in a German public school in West Berlin and high school in Brooklyn, NY. His father, who also studied engineering, instilled in him an early love of science fiction and fantasy, taking him to his first science fiction conventions while Bart was in junior high school. NYC was also where he studied all three fencing weapons at the Fencers Club and shot Jr. Olympic archery, representing the city at the Empire State Games.

Bart joined the Army after high school, leaving active duty as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne to complete his college degree. Journalism gave him his start as a professional writer and photographer. He worked as a stringer for the city daily newspapers in Baton Rouge, La., while studying at LSU, where he earned his mechanical engineering degree and his commission in the US Army Reserve in the Corps of Engineers.

After working for several organizations, Bart earned his Professional Engineer license and started his own engineering and design firm. He continued to serve in the Army on Active and Reserve status. He also became a part-time university researcher and lecturer. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the National Academy of Forensic Engineers. He is nationally and internationally board-certified as a Forensic Engineer, leading to giving testimony at the USCG Marine Board of Investigation of OceanGate and the Titan Submersible fatalities, providing forensic review of the National Academies' report on the Arecibo Radio Telescope failure, and other significant cases.

Bart has earned patents in fields including municipal waste recycling, biomedical devices, and consumer products. He has written peer-reviewed papers on topics ranging from military explosives to Artificial Intelligence to ethics. He has provided written and media commentary on a variety of engineering and military topics, including the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.

After a variety of military assignments, including three deployments and battalion command, Bart has retired from the military and has returned to creative work in fiction and photography, with a passion for science fiction, while continuing as a consulting engineer. He attends several science fiction conventions around the country every year and has earned the title of "Bourbon Master" with the New Orleans Bourbon Society. The last two items may or may not be related.