SMN Labs · Lafayette, Colorado

Sasha Novack, Ph.D.

Technical writer with a physics Ph.D. I make complicated things understandable, for people and for the AI tools they use: satellite-imagery APIs, government documentation sites, and physics lessons hidden inside an English class.

Get in touch View CV (PDF)

Open to new technical writing roles · let’s talk

Sasha Novack smiling on a park bench, wearing sunglasses and a grey beanie

What I do

Four ways into the same curiosity

Technical Writing

API, UI and AI-ready documentation for satellite-imagery platforms at Vantor (formerly Maxar), from Docusaurus and OpenAPI to MadCap Flare.

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Research

A PhD at the meeting point of human-computer interaction and physics education, after years in cosmology, liquid crystals, protein crystallography and virology labs.

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Journalism

Long-form reporting for The Bold, CU Boulder student media: a hidden Foucault pendulum, campus protest, and how communities can prevent mass shootings.

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Making & Music

Cello restoration with a local luthier, a cello built from reclaimed Baltimore wood, machine-shop work, bartending, and two decades behind a cello.

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Students lighting up the circuit in a Rock, Paper, Physics! booklet during a class activity

Featured research

Rock, Paper, Physics!

The heart of my Ph.D.: interactive paper-circuit booklets that use physics to teach English, music, art and social studies. I study how well they work for students, how feasible they are for teachers to build, and how the design evolves. The booklets are open source.

First-author paper: “Fabrication of a physical circuitry activity booklet for English instruction,” Design+ 3.1 (2026).

See the booklets

Experience

From the Atacama to the API docs

  1. 2021 – 2026

    Technical Writer / CAD Engineer

    Vantor (formerly Maxar Technologies) · Westminster, CO

    Worked with SMEs, software engineers and satellite operators on API documentation, API specifications and UI documentation for every user level. Led the team’s AI adoption, in both the writing process and the customer experience.

    • Rewrote the API docs for 3 platforms and the UI docs for 5, with one cohesive style; customer feedback was 100% positive.
    • Built reusable content and auto-generated content across every platform, cutting publishing and editing time by 33%.
    • Added pipelines that serve the docs to AI chatbots and agents (llms.txt and raw Markdown), raising AI parsing accuracy from 32% to 91%.
    • Stood up SIPRNet and JWICS instances of government documentation sites, enabling real-time satellite-imagery support for high-value customers.

  2. 2020 – 2026

    Research Associate & Co-director, Quantum Scholars

    University of Colorado Boulder · Boulder, CO

    Designed, built and ran two thesis-level studies of students’ attitudes and beliefs toward physics, and helped labmates with physics, engineering and fabrication.

    • Main study ran in multiple high-school classrooms and improved student attitudes toward physics by 50%, leading to 2 publications and my thesis.
    • Built a haptic system for teaching piano, a manual autotuner for string instruments, and circuitry for digital microfluidic devices: 7 publications and industry adoption.
    • Grew Quantum Scholars from 40 to 200 students a semester (500+ in all) with full industry support: speaker series, lab tours and an annual quantum hackathon.
    • Ran the fabrication lab: 3D printers, laser cutters, soldering stations and more.

  3. 2017 – 2020

    Research Associate, CLASS Telescope Lab

    Johns Hopkins University · Baltimore, MD & Atacama, Chile

    Fabricated parts for 4 telescopes and maintained the database tooling for telescope data, then installed parts on site in the Atacama Desert from January to April 2020.

    • Designed a compressed-air system to replace the nitrogen gas system, saving $1,400 a month in operating costs.

  4. 2016 – 2019

    Research Associate

    Liquid crystal, protein crystallography and virology labs · JHU, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Rockefeller University

    Built instruments, grew and imaged proteins, and did early CRISPR work in Dr. Charles M. Rice’s lab.

    • Built a machine that spreads substrate evenly onto microscope slides: a new fabrication technique, 3 publications, and 92% more reliable neuron growth.
    • Designed new protein tertiary structures, tested in silico and in vitro, used in Dr. Bert Vogelstein’s breast cancer research.

Download the full CV (PDF) →

Toolkit

What I work with

Documentation

  • Docusaurus
  • Markdown
  • MadCap Flare
  • MadCap Capture
  • Fern
  • OpenAPI specs
  • llms.txt
  • MCP servers

Engineering

  • GitHub
  • VS Code
  • Python
  • SQL
  • HTML
  • Astro
  • Linux
  • Cloudflare Workers

Business & geospatial

  • JIRA
  • SAP
  • Microsoft Office
  • ArcGIS
  • ArcMap
  • QGIS

Lab & fabrication

  • pyMOL
  • Lathe & mill
  • 3D printing
  • Laser cutting
  • Soldering & circuitry
  • Cryogenics
  • Lutherie

Teaching & outreach

Teaching physics since 2017

I have taught physics as an instructor of record, helped train future physics teachers, and co-directed outreach programs that bring hands-on physics to new audiences.

On the web

Websites I’ve created

All hand-built in Astro and deployed on Cloudflare Workers.

Odessa Films

The company site for Odessa Films, rebuilt in Astro with full pages for every film, trailers, and the editing catalogue.

Visit

The Elephant’s Return

A scroll-story site for the feature documentary about Julie and Kariba, two circus elephants and their journey to sanctuary.

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Nancy Novack, A.C.E.

Portfolio for the film editor: credits, a highlight reel of trailers, and a generated résumé PDF.

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Fraser Valley Smart Homes

The site for my smart-home installation business, with a winter trail-map look, live “home report” and platform guide.

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SMN Labs

This site. Hand-built in Astro on Cloudflare Workers, with a dark mode, a working contact form and a 404 easter egg.

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About

Brooklyn, Baltimore, Boulder

Sasha Novack is a technical writer, physicist and award-winning cellist based in Lafayette, Colorado. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he went to LaGuardia High School, where he studied cello and trombone, then earned a B.Sc. in Physics with a minor in Music from Johns Hopkins University.

At JHU he worked in a multitude of labs, from designing physics lab curricula to liquid crystal research to cosmology, while playing in campus musicals and orchestras.

Sasha earned his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder, jointly advised by the ATLAS Institute and the Physics Education Research group, working at the intersection of human-computer interaction and physics education. Along the way he worked with HASEL actuators, biochips, Unity and interactive musical jam stations to find creative answers to interdisciplinary problems. From 2021 to 2026 he wrote API and UI documentation at Vantor (formerly Maxar Technologies), where he also led the team’s adoption of AI.

Hiring a technical writer?

I’m open to new roles in API, UI and AI-ready documentation. I’m also always happy to talk physics, cellos or smart homes.

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