Diane Turnshek is a lecturer in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. She runs the Astronomy Public Lecture Series at Allegheny Observatory and coordinates astronomy outreach in Pittsburgh, PA. Her love of both astronomy and science fiction led her to crew the Mars Desert Research Station (featured in the documentary "Above and Below") where she turned her attention to dark sky advocacy and earned an International Dark Sky Defender Award. She gave a light pollution TEDxPittsburgh talk, curated a series of space art galleries, and founded the local chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association. In 2019, she edited the genre anthology Triangulation: Dark Skies with twenty-one starry night short stories.
