Jess Phoenix
Jess Phoenix (born January 13, 1982) is an American TV personality and former Democratic candidate in the 2018 election to represent California in the US House of Representatives in the 25th Congressional District in California and lost in the Democratic primary on June 5, 2018. Phoenix is the co-host on the Discovery series "Hunting Atlantis" and holds an adjunct faculty position in Natural Sciences at Pasadena City College in California . Phoenix currently works as a self-employed consultant in resources & hazards, advising for Anglo American, USGS, National Geographic, and the National Science Foundation. Early life and education . Phoenix grew up in Colorado, USA, with two parents who are FBI agents. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Smith College and a master's in geography from California State University, Los Angeles, with a thesis titled "Lava Flow Morphologies and Structural Features Along the Axis of the South Rift Zone of Loihi Seamount, Hawaii". Phoenix later enrolled in a PhD program at Queensland University of Technology in Australia studying Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental range but left academia after falling out with her PhD advisor. Books. Phoenix has written a memoir titled "Ms. Adventure: My  Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life" published by Timber Press, a division of Workman Publishing Group 2021. The book was nominated as a finalist for the AAAS/Subaru 2022 Prize for Excellence in Science Books in the category of Young Adult Science. Media. Phoenix has appeared in the Discovery series "Trailblazers" in 2016, "Devil Sharks" in 2017, appeared in Science Channel's series What on Earth? in 2015, and in 2021 was a co-host with Stel Pavlou on the Discovery series "Hunting Atlantis". Phoenix has been quoted in several articles and news outlets related to science and science  policy, including BBC New Online, DailyKos, Medium, and Face the Current magazine. Hunting Atlantis. Phoenix is the co-host of the Discovery television series "Hunting Atlantis", which has been criticized by scientists from the archaeology, anthropology, and history communities for pseudoscience and misrepresenting history and archaeology for entertainment purposes. Jason Colavito, a skeptic and debunker of pseudoscience in popular culture, called "Hunting Atlantis" one of the worst, most incoherent, poorly written, and badly produced pseudohistory documentaries in its genre." Personal life. Phoenix is married to Carlos Peláez and they both changed their names to Phoenix in 2012. Together they founded  Blueprint Earth, a volunteer-based non-profit focused on cataloging the ecosystem in one square kilometer of the Mojave Desert.