Thomas Hayden is a lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University, where he teaches science and environmental writing, journalism and communication. Hayden trained as a biological oceanographer before joining Newsweek as a staffer in 1997. He was subsequently a senior writer at US News & World Report for five years, and has worked as a freelance journalist and nonfiction author since 2005. His articles and photographs have been published in more than two dozen outlets, and his cover stories have been featured in magazines including National Geographic, Wired and Smithsonian. Hayden is the co-author of two popular books, the critically acclaimed Sex and War, and the national bestseller On Call in Hell, and was lead writer for the 2010 9th edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World. He blogs, with friends, at www.thelastwordonnothing.com, but nothing makes him happier than when good students do excellent work. They do so regularly at the SAGE environmental advice column (alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/sage) and at the Generation Anthropocene podcast series (www.stanford.edu/group/anthropocene.) Hayden lives in San Francisco with his wife and fellow science writer, and two budding naturalists, both under the age of three. He grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and still misses the cold.