Marco De Prosperis is a writer, scholar, and university executive with more than thirty years of experience in higher education, aerospace, manufacturing, and public administration. Born in Rome, he has lived and worked in Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2015. His educational background reflects this international experience: he studied electronic engineering in Italy, earned a Master of Business Administration in the Netherlands, and a Doctor of Education in the United States. Over the course of his career, he worked for the European Space Agency for more than ten years, gaining extensive experience in aerospace. He contributed to the design of instrumentation and sensors for MEDET, an experiment carried to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis during the STS-122 mission and later installed on the exterior of Columbus, Europe's laboratory module, during a spacewalk. Since 2014, he has worked at the University of Arkansas, where he serves in senior leadership roles. His research focuses on occupational stress, work systems, hybrid work, equity, and algorithmic governance. His research has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, including The Journal of Academic Librarianship. He is the author of the nonfiction books The Future of Technology and Society: A Guide for 2040 and 2050 AI and What Makes Us Human, both published in multiple languages. His experience within complex organizations informs his research and nonfiction writing, as well as the institutional realism of his fiction. The Black Bar is his debut novel.