Ken Chiacchia’s bio reads like a random sampling of events from different people’s lives.
A defrocked biochemist, he has since been a public relations writer, freelance newspaper reporter, science fiction author, EMT, search-and-rescue dog handler and search manager, firefighter, radio commentator, and hobby farmer. These days he’s senior science writer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC).
Ken's speculative fiction credits include Cicada, Paradox, Oceans of the Mind, and Triangulation. He was a nominee for the 2007 Rhysling Award for SF poetry. On the nonfiction side, he’s won several Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, the 2008 Carnegie Science Center Award for science journalism, and several Hermes Creative Awards for his work as an editor and writer at PSC and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Much to his surprise, he’s recently started doing research again, publishing several peer-reviewed papers since 2010 on methods to measure the effectiveness of canine and human searchers at locating lost people.
Ken lives with his wife, dog trainer and writer Heather Houlahan, and a cloud of canine partners, barn cats, chickens, turkeys, goats, and sheep, on a 27-acre farm in Harmony, Pa.