Trivia lover and spare-time etymologist Michael E. Newman has been at NIST for 25 years and currently serves as a senior communications officer. A native of Houston, he originally planned a career as a research scientist but detoured into science communications after his first (and only) year of graduate school. His public affairs, journalistic and AV experiences prior to NIST include time as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, a medical TV writer/producer for the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, a features reporter at an NPR affiliate, an ABC-TV news producer, an audiovisual production manager and media spokesman for a Fortune 500 oil and gas company, and a public affairs specialist for the National Cancer Institute.