About the Authors
Bryan Vila is a professor emeritus at Washington State University and founder/former director of its Simulated Hazardous Operational Tasks laboratory. His research interests include cross-cultural policing, police fatigue and work hours, and criminology theory. He has published more than 80 articles on these topics as well as four books, including Tired Cops: the Importance of Managing Police Fatigue.
Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of California, Davis, Bryan has also held tenured faculty positions at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Wyoming. Prior to joining WSU in 2005, he directed crime control and prevention research at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Before he became an academic, Bryan served as a law enforcement officer for 17 years — including nine years as a street cop and supervisor with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, six years as a police chief helping the emerging nations of Micronesia develop stable and culturally-appropriate law enforcement agencies, and two years as a federal law enforcement officer in Washington, D.C.
Cynthia Morris has worked as a writer and editor since 1981. She has published 25 books, and written thousands of news and feature articles on topics ranging from camel farming in the desert to wormholes in outer space.
In addition to being a science writer and history buff, Cyn has a lifelong addiction to word puzzles — particularly quotation puzzles known as acrostics. In 2005, after decades of solving other people’s puzzles, she began constructing her own acrostics. Nineteen volumes of her acrostic puzzles are now available in print, and on the Egghead Games Acrostics app.
Before embarking on a freelance career, Cyn was an award-winning science writer at the University of California, Irvine. She also has worked as the assistant regional PR manager for MCI Communications Corp., and as an account executive for a Newport Beach-based PR firm.
