About DT Mularkey
A Research Approach
DT Mularkey uses her academic research skills to get the story details right. Of course, the imaginary details are real to her and, she hopes, to the readers.
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Current areas of expertise and interests
Mechanical Engineering | STEM Education | Astronomy | Design | Travel and Living Abroad | Archeology | Ancient Near East | B-24s | WWII |
About the Author: D.T. Mularkey
Dona Mularkey’s first published books were textbooks for the classes she taught at Southern Methodist University while teaching mechanical engineering. During her twenty years at SMU, she also authored a cookbook with a friend and an inspirational book with a military theme.
During her time at SMU, Dona became interested in promoting engineering to girls as a career path. Her ideas about the ideal age to focus on kept changing from high school to middle school and then to elementary school. She realized one day the toys her two-year-old grandson played with were simple machines. This led her to write stories introducing kids to engineering through simple machines.
Dr. Mularkey went from professor to writer of novels during her retirement.
Life Mantra
A woman may use any photo taken in her lifetime anytime she wants for any purpose.
Thrillers and STEM
The Seven Year Glitch - A death threat. A deadline. And a dead ringer for his one true love.
“You’ll be dead by Sunday” lays on the top of Ledger Warren’s in box. In this new noir thriller, a wealthy resort owner opens a note announcing his imminent death. Can he collect his biggest casino payoff, evade being killed, and escape his private island alive?
Warren keeps his cards close to his vest. A week before the season finale at Drake’s Resort where obscenely wealthy gamblers bet their fortunes and their faces—winners take all—he receives a note announcing he’ll be dead in days.
Equally distracting, a gorgeous dead ringer for the love of his life mysteriously appears sending his paranoia skyrocketing while ripping open old wounds of family betrayal.
With no family or close friends, a shady partner, and managers with expiring contracts, Ledger Warren is suspicious of everyone. Who is threatening him: a resort guest, an angry gambler who lost it all, or an employee with an axe to grind? Perhaps someone from his own checkered past will strike before he flees his own private paradise.
My Life So Far
Dona was born in Missouri to a military family. She lived and grew up in several states and Japan. She graduated from UNC-Charlotte as their first female student to earn an engineering degree. Her first engineering job was in Dallas for LTV Corp. She moved to a subsidiary after a year, and then to Texas Instruments where she worked in their defense business for a number of years. It was at TI that she learned to scuba dive and became an assistant instructor.
Dona moved to Tennessee and attended Vanderbilt University earning her Ph.D. She won a fellowship from the National Science Foundation for a summer in Japan pursuing research, and later a fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the US Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C., followed by second AAAS fellowship in Ukraine. At the end of the contract she taught for the University of Maryland in Europe in Belgium, Spain, and Germany.
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Returning to Texas, Dona began teaching at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Her first few summers were spent teaching for Central Texas College aboard U.S. Navy ships at home and abroad. Her first assignment saw her circle the globe on an aircraft carrier affording her a chance to see the southern constellations and several green flash sunsets.
At SMU, Dona was tasked with successfully overseeing accreditation for her department and for all ABET accredited Lyle School of Engineering programs. Just before retiring she was recognized for mentoring engineering students conducting individual research and design projects
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Dona began writing short stories to fill the evenings in Kyiv, Ukraine. Two of those stories served as outlines for two novels that she wrote after retiring. She is still traveling and blogs about it at nowwhat-mularkey.com
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She has always had a wide range of interests. Today Dona is very interested in processes, how things are done or accomplished to reach a result. These processes may be technical, social, organic, historic, just about anything really
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Blog - Now What?
Read my weekly blog at nowwhat-mularkey.com