Barbara Oakley Ph.D., P.E.

Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., P.E., is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers and an engineering professor at Oakland University. She has been dubbed a "female Indiana Jones" because of her globe-trotting adventures and off-beat way of viewing the world.

Oakley states: One of the nicest things I've learned about writing a book like Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend is that it's possible to bring fresh perspectives to understanding human behavior by applying knowledge from many different disciplines. I think it's as important to use the latest breakthroughs from science as it is to use real world insights.

I've gotten my real world insights by working in lots of different places and doing very different things: serving as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers up in the Bering Sea, teaching in China, going from US Army private to Regular Army Captain, and working as a radio operator at the South Pole Station in the Antarctic. (I met my husband there-had to go to the end of the earth to meet that man!) My doctorate is in systems engineering--an integrative transdiscipline that approaches problems in multidisciplinary fashion. I currently work as an Associate Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, where I do my research and writing. I'm a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers and a recent vice president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. My work has appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times to the IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience.

My last book, Evil Genes, is focused on people who are naturally nasty. My next book will be about those who are naturally kind-Too Kind. Feel free pop me an e-mail if you'd like to know when my next book is coming out, or if you have an interesting story about someone who is too kind for their own (and others') good.