Shauna Roberts, Ph.D.
Freelance science writer
New Orleans

• Read about my professional background.

• View my resume.

• Learn about my book The Commonsense Guide to Weight Loss for People with Diabetes.

• Read about my personal interests.

• Find out about my early music groups.

• See a list of resources for people with chronic illnesses.

Welcome to Shauna Roberts' home page!

I am a freelance science and medical writer and editor. My specialties are diabetes, biomedical techniques, and animal behavior.

Professional Background. Before making the leap from a salaried job to freelancing in 1990, I was a writer at The Journal of NIH Research and the editor of Science magazine's Guide to Biotechnology Products and Instruments. (My resume is available online. You can also download a .PDF file of my resume, which can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat^™ Reader.)

I've written articles and patient information pamphlets on all sorts of topics related to diabetes, including many on weight loss, good diet, and exercise. I wrote the American Diabetes Association's award-winning patient newsletter, The Diabetes Advisor, during its existence (1993-1999).

I've also written extensively on biomedical techniques and their applications, including the polymerase chain reaction and other nucleic acid amplification techniques, cell culture methods, immunoassays, electroporation, computer-aided drug design, and biosensors.

Following are links to some of my articles. These are not particularly representative of my work; they just happen to be what's online:

• "Blood Safety in the Age of AIDS" (FASEB Journal 10:391-402, 1996)

• "Cytokine Research Proliferates despite Growing Pains" (Science 282:1727-36, 1998)

• "Take Two: Aspirin" (Modern Drug Discovery 3(8):23-27, 2000)

• "When It Comes To Bad News, Doctors Chicken Out" (Cancerpage.com, May 2000)

• "Banish Nighttime Lows And Waking-Up Highs" and "Chromium" (Diabetes Forecast 54(6):19-21, 2001)

I also have coauthored two books, one popular and one professional:

• The Commonsense Guide to Weight Loss for People with Diabetes (by Barbara Caleen Hansen and Shauna S. Roberts) explains what scientists know about the best ways to lose weight and tells how losing weight can help some people with diabetes control their glucose better. Published by the American Diabetes Association in 1998 and recipient of two awards for health books, The Commonsense Guide can be ordered from the National Association of Science Writers' online Science Bookstore. If you'd like to learn more, I've put the table of contents and introduction online.
  
  
• Basic Demographic Observations on Free-Ranging Rhesus Monkeys (by Donald Stone Sade, B. Diane Chepko-Sade, Jonathan M. Schneider, Shauna S. Roberts, and Joan T. Richtsmeier) contains life histories for 2285 rhesus monkeys who lived on the island of Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, between 1956 and 1977. Published by the Human Relation Area Files in 1985.

Personal Background. I grew up in a small Midwestern town (Beavercreek, Ohio) and earned my B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and my M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

(Full-size image of cats is 32 K)

When not writing, I play harp, recorders, and harpsichord in early music groups. I also enjoy quilting, growing herbs, and making bread. I live with my husband of 20 years and two cats in a rambling old Tudor in one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world, New Orleans.

To learn more about the City of New Orleans, check out these links:

• The Times-Picayune's NOLA Live site
• New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
• The Gambit's Best of New Orleans site
• New Orleans Online: Architecture
• Yahoo's list of New Orleans sites

To learn more about recorders, harps, and early music, visit these sites:

• The International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen
• The Harp Page
• The American Recorder Society
• The Recorder Home Page
• Early Music FAQ

Thank you to the National Association of Science Writers for hosting these pages.

Visitors since 11 May 1999