My first book of illustrated prose, The Forgotten Teachers: How Nature Wrote the Story of Life is forthcoming from Enchanted Lion: Unruly September 30, 2025 with pre-orders now available. The book was created in collaboration with artist and deep thinker, Claudia Biçen.

The Forgotten Teachers will be a Kirkus Reviews 2025 Fall Preview selection. “Crossing arbitrary divisions between art and science, the book closes by asking readers, ‘What story will you choose to tell?'” —Kirkus Reviews. Full review

The Forgotten Teachers charts the evolution of life on Earth under the mentorship of six ancient teachers: Ocean, Air, Theia, Sun, Plants, and Symbionts. Ideas from the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology, accompanied by watercolor illustrations by Claudia Biçen, guide this factual yet mytho-poetic exploration of a story connecting all of life.

As a biologist, I have studied how mice use their whiskers to sense shapes and mapped neural circuits in the brain involved with Parkinson’s Disease. I’ve even listened in on the conversations of electric fish, and chemical signals of immune cells fighting cancer. A number of these scientific journeys have appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and many more, I am sure, lie ahead.