Gretchen Bakke is the author of 'The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future'. Gretchen Bakke holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Cultural Anthropology. Her work focuses on the chaos and creativity that emerges during social, cultural, and technological transitions. For the past decade she has been researching and writing about the changing culture of electricity in the United States. In addition to her work on electric power systems she has done research in the Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and in Cuba. She is a former fellow in Wesleyan University’s Science in Society Program, a former Fulbright fellow, and is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at McGill University. Born in Portland, Oregon, Bakke lives in Montreal.