Against Their Will #241

Allen M. Hornblum was born and raised in Philadelphia and has become a noted chronicler of some of the more contentious and hair-raising chapters in the city’s and nation's history. He received degrees from Penn State, Villanova, and Temple Universities and develop a healthy appetite for good books, solid research, and respect for investigative journalists and chroniclers of American history. Before devoting all his time to researching and writing about the people and events he felt had been neglected over the years, Allen was more the public activist than solitary, library-based scholar. Between these polar opposites was an eclectic professional life that included stints as a prison literacy instructor, congressional staffer, advocate for the dispossessed, with additional turns as a transit lobbyist, cable television host, law enforcement administrator, and college lecturer.

Erika is a San Francisco-based reporter for the science journal Nature, where she covers biomedicine and biology. She also teaches in the University of California Santa Cruz Science Communication program.