Samuel Octavius Carter enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1997 and served for twenty-four years. He was an Instructor Trainer at the Martial Arts Center of Excellence, taught functional and combat fitness, coached weapons handling and marksmanship, helped modernize the Marine Corps intelligence community’s use of data engineering and artificial intelligence, and completed five combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He discovered his love for reading books during those long deployments, lost in the magical world of Harry Potter, the adventures of Jason Bourne, and the cyberpunk of William Gibson.

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Since retiring as a Master Gunnery Sergeant, Sam completed a B.S. in Computer Networks and Cybersecurity, an M.S. in Data Analytics from the University of Maryland, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computational Social Science from George Mason University. He is also the former co-Executive Director of ThrillerFest, the annual conference of the International Thriller Writers. Despite the many demands on his time, Sam enjoys more than anything spending his days annoying his kids and doting on his wife. 
 

 

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