Hannu Rajaniemi

Hannu Rajaniemi was born in Finland. At the age of eight he approached the European Space Agency with a fusion-powered spaceship design, which was received with a polite “thank you” note. Hannu studied mathematics and theoretical physics at University of Oulu and Cambridge and holds a PhD in string theory from the University of Edinburgh. He co-founded a mathematics consultancy whose clients included UK Ministry of Defence and the European Space Agency.

Hannu is the author of four novels including The Quantum Thief (winner of 2012 Tähtivaeltaja Award for the best science fiction novel published in Finland and translated into more than 20 languages), the forthcoming Summerland (June 2018), and Invisible Planets: Collected Fiction, a short story collection. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a co-founder of HelixNano, a synthetic biology startup that graduated from Y Combinator in 2017.