Hey Y’all!

The Atlanta Skeptics blog consists of a team of several local bloggers:

Joe Anderson

Joe grew up in Atlanta until his family packed up and moved to the bustling metropolis of Muskogee, Oklahoma – every thirteen year old’s dream.  Shortly thereafter he convinced his parents to let him stay home from church one Sunday to watch Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”.

Hilarity ensued.

What began as questioning how all those animals could fit on the Ark turned into an obsession with his very own “baloney detection kit”.   After a stint in Germany for the Army, he studied electrical engineering, computer science and zoology at the University of Oklahoma.  Software development brought him to Philadelphia, then London.  All of this experience prepared him for his most important job to date:  He’s the Official (un-official) Skepchick Bartender ™, a thankless job which entails spending time around super-smart, beautiful women.

Tim Farley

Tim Farley is the creator of the skeptic website What’s The Harm (whatstheharm.net), which chronicles the damage done by belief in the paranormal, pseudoscience and misinformation.  His skeptical efforts mainly focus on new ways to use the internet and computers to spread the message of skepticism, and he’s spoken on this topic at Skepticamp and more than one Amazing Meeting.  He occasionally blogs on this topic at skeptools.com.  In his day job he’s an instructor for a computer security training company based in Illinois.  In the past he’s worked as a software developer for several major companies here in Atlanta.

Lisa Hammett

Lisa was born (Charlotte, NC) and raised (Jonesboro, GA) in the Deep South. She was raised Southern Baptist, then converted to Mormonism, and now considers herself unaffiliated. She got a B.S. and M.S. from Auburn University in Microbiology. She met her husband Rich while at Auburn. After graduation she worked at a biotech company in Huntsville, AL and then worked part time at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. She worked briefly at the National Institutes of Health before her son decided to be born eight weeks early. Since then she has mostly been a stay at home mom of two great kids while occasionally teaching microbiology at community colleges. Currently she home schools her kids, tries to read all the books on her reading list, and generally just tries to hang on to the merry go round of life so she doesn’t get thrown to the wolves.

Rich Hammett

Rich is an electrical engineer/scientific computer programmer who has dragged his wife and children back to the South to help him work on a PhD in Neuroengineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. He works on software and electronic models of human brain function. He has had the unique experience of watching his children’s brains develop while he studied neuroscience, and after neuroscience class ended, he also decided to conduct experiments on himself by suffering a car accident and a severe traumatic brain injury. He has found the whole experience to be fascinating, but his family has found the injuries, hospitalizations, and rehabilitation to be something of a burden, and they say that he might be slightly more critical (thinker) than before. Long ago, he served a two-year full-time LDS mission to Finland, learned Finnish fluently, has occasionally worked as a Finnish teacher and translator, and has even subscribed to the Finnish skeptical magazine “Skeptikko.”

Jerry Jobe

Jerry’s journey to skepticism has been a long and slow one, since being captivated by “Chariots of the Gods” and “Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain” back in the ‘70s. An encounter with alternative medicine led him to become more actively skeptic, and he realized he was an atheist as well shortly after that. He finds it more difficult to get over being generally shy and non-confrontational, but blogging should help.

Jerry has been a resident of the Atlanta area for over 35 years, working since 1987 as a computer programmer. He’s married with a daughter adopted from Nanping, Fujian province, China. His hobbies include theater and music.

Stephen K

Stephen K has been with the Atlanta Skeptics since May 2008, when he wandered into a Skeptics in the Pub meeting he had learned about on the Skepchick calendar. Since that time he’s attended and participated in most functions of the AS, including Dragon*Con, the Star Party, and Skepticamp. Most recently Stephen organized the first Atlanta Skeptics in the Park. When not advancing Skepticism, or working his day job, Stephen can be found performing on one of the many Atlanta theatre stages.

Adam Levenstein
Nothing is known about Adam Levenstein at this time…

Scott Little

When asked to write a bio about himself, Scott responded, “I’m a skeptic. Will that work?”

Scott hates talking about himself in the third person. He works in educational theater and has been a skeptic all his life.  He has a son, two dogs and a dislike for religious nuts.  Carl Sagan is his hero.

Taylor Proctor

When not making cookies and keeping Georgia’s groundwater nice and clean, the World’s Tiniest Geologist spreads her love of science by volunteer teaching at a local non-profit school for kids with special needs and organizing the Atlanta Skepticamp.  She attributes her love of puzzles to years of watching Unsolved Mysteries as a child, and her love of Juicy Juice to the fact that it is 100% real juice. Be it in a fruit beverage or in research, Taylor Proctor prefers truth and authenticity.

Taylor lives in Atlanta with her two skeptipups, where she is encouraging Daisy Buttons and Bijou Bobbins to express their skepticism in canine form by barking at strangers.

James Severin

James Severin is an Iraq war Vet with two beautiful girls ages 5 and 7.  He loves MMA, science, comics, and video games.  Which probably makes him a walking contradiction…

Andrew Sevrisnky

Andrew is a man of mystery…

Maria Walters

Maria Walters (a.k.a. Masala Skeptic) has spent a lot of time in ‘furrin parts,’ including Hong Kong, Trinidad, and Pittsburgh. Although her passport is from India, she’s spent most of her adult life in the United States. Her current obsession is trying to find skepticism in the Indian community — there are a billion Indians, so you’d think it wouldn’t be hard. She’s also a pop culture fanatic and often uses books, movies and comics as her reference material. She has an unhealthy affection for all things Muppets and Neil Gaiman and lives in Atlanta with two smelly but afffectionate dogs and a husband, who is often less smelly. Maria also blogs at Skepchick.org and Masala-Skeptic.com.