Philip A Loring is a human ecologist currently working at the Center for Cross Cultural Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He teaches classes in ecological anthropology, comparative food systems, and regional sustainability. His interests are historical ecology, food and nutrition, and natural resource management, with a particular focus on indigenous food systems, natural systems farming, tribalism, and the vulnerabilities imbedded in the global, agro-industrial food system. His current research involves the impacts of climate change on Alaskan food systems.

In a past life he was a computer software engineer with experience in the telecommunications and healthcare industries. The Fireweed represents his second attempt since escaping from that world to create a forum for starting a dialog about social, cultural and economic change.

His work is most influenced by Daniel Quinn, Craig Gerlach, J.D. Salinger, Sinclair Lewis, Cormac MacArthy, and of course his mom, Marjorie Loring.