Jeff Hecht is a science and technology writer who covers topics from lasers to dinosaurs. He writes regularly for magazines including New Scientist, Sky&Telescope, IEEE Spectrum, Photonics Focus, Nature, and Optics & Photonics News. His science fiction stories have appeared in Nature Futures, Little Blue Marble, Analog, Asimov's, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, and Twilight Zone, as well as in New Dimensions 8 and 9 (ed. Silverberg; 1978 and 1979), The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series X (ed. Wagner; DAW, 1981), Great American Ghost Stories (eds. Greenberg and McSherry; 1991), Alien Pregnant by Elvis (ed. Greenberg; DAW, 1994), Vampires (eds. Greenberg and Yolen; HarperCollins, 2002), Futures from Nature (ed. Gee; Tor Books, 2007), Visions of Tomorrow (eds. Dial and Easton; Skyhorse, 2010), Impossible Futures (eds. Dial and Easton; Pink Narcissus Press, 2013), Extreme Planets (eds. Conyers, Harris, and Kerndt; Chaosium Inc., 2013), and Conspiracy! (eds. Dial and Easton; NESFA Press, 2016). His favorite Readercon memory was interviewing Guest of Honor Brian Aldiss on stage
His most recent book, Lasers, Death Rays, and the Long, Strange Quest for the Ultimate Weapon (Prometheus Books, 2019), tells the history of efforts to make energy weapons, from Archimedes and Nikola Tesla to the new generation of weaponized industrial lasers. He enjoys writing about the history of technology; some events that really happen are things you would never believe in fiction. He also has written about the histories of lasers and fiber optics, and his book Understanding Lasers: An Entry-Level Guide (Wiley-IEEE Press, 1988) is now in its fourth edition. He holds a B.S. in electronic engineering from Caltech and an M.Ed. in higher education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in Auburndale, MA with his wife, Lois.