Morgan Gendel, Star Trek Writer and Founder of Planetary Shelter LLC
Morgan Gendel is a screenwriter, lecturer and entrepreneur who has written or produced more than 250 episodes of television for series including Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space 9; The 100; Law & Order, The Dresden Files, Nash Bridges and many more. An ASME member, his innovative concept for a low-energy, high-ISRU habitat for terrestrial and planetary surface applications has received a US patent and is currently being explored for potential prototyping by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Morgan is best known as writer of "The Inner Light," the heartbreaking Star Trek: TNG episode that earned him the esteemed Hugo Award for Science Fiction Writing. The Hollywood Reporter called the episode "Trek's most beloved story." He is currently assembling an international consortium to finance and distribute his original sci-fi series, Isolation. The series revolves around a team of Arctic-based climate change researchers who discover that an alien civilization plans to geo-engineer the Earth in ways that will end all life on our planet.
Morgan has taught or consulted in Berlin, Cologne, Moscow, and Los Angeles and is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Old Dominion University, Virginia, where he teaches Writing for Television and TV Production. In addition, he has lectured and led panels on several scientific topics, including a talk on the Human Connectome inspired by "The Inner Light's" tale of implanted memories.
Via his company, Planetary Shelter LLC, Morgan led a team of NASA astronautic scientists and mechanical engineers as Principal Investigator on a submission for NASA's 2022 Innovative Advanced Concepts award. He and his wife Debra, a communications consultant, reside in Washington, DC.