Bio

I’m a journalist and photographer based in southern California. My writing has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, and I’ve written, edited, and contributed to some twenty books and publications.

During the 1990s, I was host of Insight & Outlook, a cultural affairs program heard on many National Public Radio stations in the U.S. and on global shortwave.

In recent years, I’ve devoted much of my time to photography, both as a documentary and a creative medium. My images have been widely published and exhibited in several cities across the U.S. and Europe.

I also have a consulting practice. Over the past decade, I've worked with academic, government, and nonprofit leaders on issues involving social innovation and civic renewal. I’ve led several national studies and research projects aimed at understanding how social innovators do their work, the power of informal networks, the uses (and misuses) of collaboration, and how communities transform and renew themselves.

I was born in Washington D.C. in 1965. At the age of five, my family moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where I was raised and educated. I returned to the U.S. in 1990 and now live in Santa Barbara, California, with my wife and our two daughters.