Education
Shimer College; University of Jena. University of Heidelberg.
Shimer College; University of Jena. University of Heidelberg.
Kraai reached General Motors status in 2007. Kraai was born in Santa Fe. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Shimer College in 1994, his Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Jena, Germany in 1996, and his Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in 2001.
His dissertation examined the influence of Georg Joachim Rheticus on the development of Copernican theory.
In 2013, Kraai published Lisa: A Chess Novel (). He had retired from teaching chess for three years in order to write the novel.
He was the first American-born player to achieve the title since Tal Shaked in 1997. Kraai won the 1987 National Junior High School Championship, tied for first in the 1988 National High School Championship, and won the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in 1989 and 1990. In 2007, he won the chess state championship of New Mexico for the fifth consecutive year.