Derek M. Puma was born December 24th, 1989 in Rome, New York. He is of Sicilian and Seneca(Haudenosaunee) decent. Puma started out modeling at age 6 and fell in love with acting doing school plays leading up to college. In college he took numerous acting courses and performed many community theatre productions. Puma was also his college mascot which he fell into and quickly grew to enjoy doing! In 2013 Puma published his first book called "The Message". An Inspirational book filled with positive and uplifting material. Puma has since turned to story telling and recently wrote a second book. This one being a mystery and romance novel. Besides writing Puma has been known for his cosplays and loves attending Comic-Cons! In 2018 Puma took a job as a professional mascot for a AHL hockey team. In 2019 Puma decided to shift his main focus as an actor to film and television. Entertaining and bringing joy to others is what Puma enjoys doing most! It is imagination and creativity which have been two driving factors in his life since at a young age and it has been through cosplay, writing stories, acting, and being a professional mascot that has made it possible for him to share this passion with others!