Charles Pellegrino is the New York Times best-selling author of Her Name Titanic, Ghosts of the Titanic, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima, and Ghosts of Hiroshima, along with eighteen other acclaimed books (including an SF trilogy under a pen name). At Brookhaven National Laboratory he was co-designer with Jim Powell of the Valkyrie relativistic rocket (hybridized with Bob Forward’s Star Wisp and animated for the Avatar series). With Jesse Stoff he co-authored the Europa Theory, worked out the chemistry of Saturn’s moon Titan, and advanced preliminary design (as in Darwin’s Universe, 1983) of the dragonfly Titan drone. He served as technical advisor to James Cameron on Titanic and serves presently on the Avatar series. As a graduate student in New Zealand, 1981, he invented what is now known as the Jurassic Park recipe, as subsequently adapted by Michael Crichton. Current projects include a new Jurassic Park direction (without the park) and the James Cameron film about double-hibakusha—people who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Raised by parents who believed in “Never give up” and aided by a few treasured teachers, he climbed up from dyslexia and autism. Never give up. And never let childhood’s sense of wonder drain away.
