Alumnus Spotlight: Ian Tregillis
Ian Tregillis
Ph.D. 2002, B.S. 1995
Ian Tregillis has been a Research Scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2005 and he is the author of seven published science fiction novels. He has authored peer-reviewed scientific papers, and received the most attention for one he co-wrote with Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin on Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe. Tregillis lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Sara, who is a playwright. He has returned to the University of Minnesota on multiple occasions, notably to give the School of Physics and Astronomy Colloquium and to attend Prof. Tom Jones’ 70th birthday celebrations.
What made you choose the UMN? I grew up in New Brighton, Minnesota and I was in the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program for junior high and high school students. I started that program in 8th grade in 1986, taking math classes at the University twice a week. Through this program, I earned a ton of credits at UMN, so it made sense to go there.
Who was your Ph.D. Advisor? Tom Jones. I was a physics and astrophysics double major. You could get an astrophysics degree with four extra classes, one of them was a thesis, and Tom was my advisor. As an undergrad I did research with him at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI). In my summers I’d work for Tom, and I did an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) in Jim Kakalios’ lab. I’m definitely not an experimentalist, I’m more of a theoretician - Jim and I figured that out. I’m very grateful to him for that.
What were you working on with Tom Jones at the time? We were at MSI, computer modeling. The common theme between undergrad and grad for me was cosmic rays from astrophysical shocks. I did my senior thesis work modeling cosmic rays from supernovae and my Ph.D. thesis on cosmic ray acceleration in radio galaxies, modeling the astrophysical jets that power the radio signals that give the galaxies their names.
I did my defense at MSI. During that time they moved MSI from the West Bank to Walter where we were crammed into a shoebox.
What is your job at Los Alamos? I started right after graduation as a postdoctoral research scientist. It was arranged in the spring, and I finished my Ph.D. a few months later. I was a post doc for three years and then hired as a Staff Scientist in 2005.
When did you publish your first novel? 2010
How did you get into writing?
I knew before I finished my Ph.D. that I wanted to turn writing into a hobby. I waited until after my Ph.D. I’m a bad multi-tasker, I started from scratch and I was worried I would be distracted. I joined an online writing workshop within a few weeks of moving to New Mexico. I was living in Los Alamos, which is small and there's not much to do. I wanted to learn the basics of the craft. I got to know other writers. In 2005 I went to the Clarion workshop in Michigan, which is a 6 week workshop for science fiction and fantasy. It was kind of a ballsy thing to do, because it was during the time when the lab was deciding whether or not to keep me on permanently as a staff scientist, but the leader of my group was cool with it.
Through sheer dumb luck, one of the instructors, Walter Jon Williams, lived in NM, and he took me aside and said, ‘Hey I noticed you live in NM, did you know there’s a vibrant community of science fiction writers in Northern NM?’ So he invited me to join, saying ‘ We tell George R.R. Martin, what's wrong with his books all the time, but he never listens.’ So I got made permanent staff at the Lab and I joined this writing group.
I found that even as an online critiquer of other people’s writing, you develop these analytical skills that you turn to your own work. At Clarion I was getting instruction from pro writers, so every morning I spent four hours critiquing others writing. Back in New Mexico, I was in a writing group that included Walter Jon Williams, Melinda M Snodgrass who worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Steve Stirling. When I joined the group Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, the two halves of the pen name James SA Corey, authors of the Expanse series, were part of the group. That was where they met and started writing together. It was amazing, I had a master class with fantastic writers every month in a group that had previously included George R. R. Martin and that remained connected to him.
Melinda and George were creators of the Wild Card Series, and Melinda mentioned to George, to possibly recruit me. Through Wild Cards I met Kay McCauley, who was also from the Twin Cities, and grew up on Lake Harriet, back a generation before me. We knew each other socially because we were both from Minnesota and she offered to be my agent. Through sheer dumb luck, I had an agent before a book and I accidentally moved to the middle of a writing community I didn’t know existed.
What advice would you give to people just starting their careers in physics?
My own career path has been so idiosyncratic. I see myself as continually developing as a physicist. I look back and think, ‘boy I didn’t know what I was doing compared to now,’ slowly getting better, in a continual process. I got my Ph.D. and came to Los Alamos, but I didn’t know what anyone was talking about. I was learning, relearning and inventing myself. I’ve worked on lots of different things–stuff I never thought I’d be working on. I thought I would be an astrophysicist forever. My background is in modeling of radio galaxy jets. A big part of my research has been studying shock waves going through materials. You wouldn’t believe how much time I’ve spent in this area, but it’s fascinating and I love it. If you would have told me in 2002 I would have thought it was boring. Both as a writer and a scientist, I have surprised myself. I would tell an aspiring physicist to put some time into learning communication skills. Being a fiction writer has made me a much better physicist. I see so many scientists who don’t care about their ability to communicate. They don’t put time into writing their research or presentations clearly and it hurts their careers. I’ll spend hours working on the writing, and that’s not normal for a scientist. Being able to understand a presentation and speak on it succinctly is an invaluable skill.
What advice do you have about writing full time and holding down a full time “day job”?
When I was on contracts, I had seven published novels that came out in 7 years. That represents 9-10 years of work. I wrote evenings and weekends. The contracts usually gave me a year to finish each book, but I’d wanna build in time to revise. I made a rule for myself to write a couple pages every day. A decade of that and I got super burned out. Now I live in Santa Fe, and I commute by bus to work in Los Alamos. I write on the bus every day, an hour each way.
Tell us about your family:
I got married just before my wife and I both turned 41. My wife, Sara also has a full time job and is a playwright on the side. Here’s another connection between me and the physics dept. When I was a HS senior, I got paired with a professor in physics. I was paired with Keith Ruddick. It was my first introduction to experimental physics. I met my future wife in that same mentoring program, where she had a mentorship at the old Guthrie Theater. We were both high school students. She became a professional stage manager in Chicago. Now she’s a professional playwright.
Tell us about your celebrated paper with George:
I wrote a paper for the American Journal of Physics (AJP) with George R.R. Martin. called Ergodic Langrangian dynamics in a superhero universe. I would be willing to bet Jim was one of the referees. I referenced Jim’s books in the paper, so of course who else are they going to send it to? [Editor’s note: Prof. Kakalios confirmed that he was not a referee on the paper] It went viral. It turned into a whole thing, and when it got accepted, the AJP wanted to do a press release. So for the first time in my career I got a visit from Media Relations at Los Alamos. They wanted to do a feature about me at the book store in Santa Fe that George owns (Beastly Books).
To learn more about alumnus Ian Tregillis, visit his website linked below.