Stephen Granade is a physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics and in sensors for automatically guiding robot vehicles. His current research involves sensors to automatically guide unpiloted helicopters to the loads they need to pick up. This has nothing to do with Skynet, though it is disturbing to see helicopters flying around you without a human at the controls. He worked on a video-based sensor that helped guide the Space Shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope. He also worked with NASA on the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS), which measures the distance from a spacecraft to a target satellite so that the spacecraft can dock gently with the satellite. When AVGS was first tested on orbit as part of the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission, the sensor guided the spacecraft right to the satellite, where the two promptly collided. This worried NASA but made the Department of Defense very interested.

His PhD research was on trapping and cooling neutral atoms to nearly absolute zero by using really powerful lasers, vacuum systems, and a fair amount of Mountain Dew. During that research he only set fire to himself once, shocked himself twice, and still has two working eyes. He has won awards for presentations to non-scientist audiences and has provided scientific commentary for FoxNews.com, CBS Marketwatch, and Jalopnik.

In his spare time he is part of the Disasterpiece Theatre and WhatTheCast? podcasts, writes computer games, and is involved with Dragon*Con TV. He is featured in the interactive fiction documentary Get Lamp, and admits to being the guy pretending to be Jonathan Coulton in the "Re Your Brains" video.