Dr. Samuel “Sam” Prien spent nearly fifty years working in reproductive science at Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, teaching students, running clinical labs, and doing research. His career blended research, invention, and hands‑on clinical work to try to advance technologies to improve people's lives.

Over the years, Sam published more than 100 scientific papers, taught thousands of undergraduates, grad students, medical students, and residents, wrote two textbooks, and developed a series of medical devices that earned multiple U.S. and international patents. In 2021, his efforts led to his induction as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Now retired from academia, Sam writes books that bring his world to a wider audience. His nonfiction guide to male infertility is straightforward, honest, and meant to help people without overwhelming them, where he follows the trail of male infertility diagnosis and treatment through the eyes of his cartoon sperm friends and their antics. His fiction trilogy uses the scientific landscape he lived as the backdrop for a story about ambition, discovery, and the strange places research can lead if hidden in the shadows. 

When he’s not writing, Sam enjoys eating queso, playing with his 200-pound Great Dane, and wondering how retirement turned out to be its own full‑time job.