Welcome!

Having retired from a long and satisfying career in scientific research, I have now returned to my roots as a writer. This website is all about my books, blogs, short fiction, peer-reviewed scientific publications, and other writings. Please feel free to explore my oeuvre while you're here. You can also read more ABOUT ME, follow me on FACEBOOK, and, if you have comments or questions, CONTACT ME. 

WHAT'S NEW

In 2019-2020 my family went through an annus horribilis that left us asking ourselves what else could possibly go wrong. 

We found out! 

As I, like everyone else, struggled to come to grips with overwhelming anxiety and grief while figuring out how to stay connected (and fed!), I started to wonder how my father and his parents had weathered the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. A little digging in the family archives led me to conclude that my grandparents, who chose the summer of 1918 to move from a pandemic hotspot in Brooklyn, NY to an even hotter hotspot in the Boston area, were extremely fortunate to have escaped its fury. Unlike most influenza epidemics, the so-called Spanish flu disproportionately affected younger adults as well as children, while largely sparing older people. Both my grandparents were in the highest-risk age group; my grandmother, pregnant with her second child, was especially vulnerable. My father, age three, was also at elevated risk.

​Many have commented on how little attention this pandemic received in the years that followed. Certainly neither of my grandparents ever spoke of it in my presence.The latest post to my Project Diana blog looks at how my father's family navigated the challenges of that earlier and even more deadly pandemic (luckily for me, successfully!).

COMING SOON

Stories I'm working on: 
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To the Moon and Back: The Human and Scientific Legacy of Project Diana
My father's work was only part, albeit an important part, of the long and proud history of the Army Signal Corps. Watch for my upcoming post.

And now that I've tracked down the King side of my father's family, I'm preparing to address the more fraught history  of the Stodola side.
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Cindy Stodola Pomerleau
author and blogger

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Also: Research Professor Emerita in the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry, internet addict, fitness enthusiast, bossy big sister, thrifter, good-but-not-great scrabble player, sporadic wikipedia editor, lapsed early musician, incipient cat lady. I love to cook and I love to eat. I am passionate about women's issues, food security, the human right to health and health care, and the environment. I am a foot soldier in the struggle to end the harm caused by tobacco use worldwide.

My family means everything to me. I have been married to Ovide Pomerleau for over fifty years. We have two daughters, two sons-in-law, and two grandchildren. We divide our time between Ann Arbor and Empire, MI.

Subscribe to My Blog(s)

My two active blogs appear irregularly - anywhere from every two weeks to up to every two months. I write my entries not on a fixed schedule but when I have both something new to say and the time to carry out the (sometimes extensive) research required. I always learn something new  when preparing my entries - be it about Armstrong's little-known wartime work on FM radar; the Toni doll, perhaps the first attempt to market to women through their children; the ukulele craze of the 1950s (remember Tiny Tim?); or Balto, the sled dog who became a public health hero by delivering a sorely-needed batch of diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska - so I'm pretty sure you will, too. Click HERE if you'd like to receive an email notice whenever a new entry to one of my blogs is posted.