Dr. James H. Speer is a Professor of Geography and Geology at Indiana State University. He received his bachelors and master’s degree from the University of Arizona in Geosciences and his PhD from the University of Tennessee in Geography. He is a biogeographer who uses tree-rings to reconstruct environmental variables such as climate change, fire history, and insect outbreaks. He has collected tree-ring samples from around the world and many of the United States. Through his years of studying environmental history, he has realized that humans are operating outside of the natural range of variability for most natural systems, which has motivated him to give back to society by being a champion for sustainability at Indiana State University and in the Wabash Valley. He has written multiple books including a textbook on dendrochronology call the Fundamentals of Tree-Ring Research. More recently, he has published popular action-adventure novels that teach science through an adventure story in Exposé on Climate Change and Exposé on Sustainability.