Steve Nelson has led a life electric and eclectic in fiber broadband networks, video production (for cable TV and consumer electronics), solar energy, computer software and rock concert production (most notably with The Velvet Underground). He is a graduate of Cornell University (math major), Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School. The seed for his theory on electricity and evolution was planted while doing anthropological field work in the Peruvian Andes, where he lived without electricity. Distinguished epigeneticist David S. Moore has praised Homo Electric as "a really thought-provoking work."