About the Writers of SciLance

SciLance is a tight-knit group of 31 award-winning science writers living in the United States, Canada, and Germany. They have worked as staffers and freelancers for newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and web sites; as public information officers; and as corporate, university, and non-profit organization writers. Together they have nearly 500 years of experience in professional writing about every science topic.

The group began at an NASW meeting in 2005, when Kendall Powell and a few other freelance science writers realized that they needed to create a "water cooler" — a place to get advice, share joys or frustrations, and take a break from the work day. Kendall created a private online listserv and drafted a set of simple rules to define the community. Since then SciLancers have shared thousands of online messages and continue to gather at various professional conferences throughout the year.

Jill U. Adams is a science journalist who reports on health, biomedical research, psychology, education, and the environment. She is a health columnist at the Washington Post and an editor for several online publications.

Monya Baker is a senior editor on the comment desk at Nature. She has written for the Economist, New Scientist, the Scientist, Wired, and other publications.

Jennifer Cutraro is the founder and director of Science Storytellers, a program that gets kids to interview scientists just as professional journalists do — and to then share their stories. She also has written for the Boston Globe, PBS KIDS, Science News for Students, and the New York Times Learning Network.

Helen Fields specializes in health, medicine, and urban wildlife. She writes regularly for The Last Word on Nothing. She once spent six weeks on an icebreaker in the Bering Sea and has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Discover, and many other publications.

Douglas Fox specializes in narrative and field-based reporting. His stories on Antarctica, Earth sciences, and evolution have appeared in National Geographic, Scientific American, High Country News, Virginia Quarterly Review, the Atlantic, and other publications.

Robert Frederick reports in multiple media with credits ranging from Science to NPR. Since 2015 he has been the digital managing editor of American Scientist.

Alison Fromme is a contributing writer for Mountain Home magazine and the founding editor of Hot Potato Press, a hyperlocal food news website. She's currently working on her first creative nonfiction book. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, Backpacker, and the New York Times Learning Network.

Emily Gertz is a journalist, author, and news entrepreneur whose environmental reporting has appeared in HuffPost, Popular Science, Reveal, Men's Journal, and many other publications. She tracks environmental news, both good and bad, in the (de)regulation nation newsletter.

Virginia Gewin is a Portland, Ore.-based science journalist, reporting on global food security, land use, climate change, and biodiversity. Her work appears in the Atlantic, Nature, Science, bioGraphic, Scientific American, and elsewhere.

Liza Gross is an independent journalist, reporter for the Food and Environment Reporting Network and author of The Science Writers' Investigative Reporting Handbook. Her work has appeared in the Intercept, the Nation, Discover, and many other publications.

Thomas Hayden is director of Stanford University's Environmental Communication Master of Arts program. He was a staffer at Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report, co-authored two books, and co-edited The Science Writers' Handbook.

Adam Hinterthuer is an associate director of the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources, communications guy for the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and, occasionally, a freelance science writer.

Hannah Hoag is a freelance journalist and the environment and energy editor at The Conversation Canada. She has written for the New York Times, Science, Nature, bioGraphic, and other publications.

Emma Marris is an environmental writer based in Oregon. Her work appears in National Geographic, Outside, Wired, Nature, and others. She also writes books.

Jessica Marshall is an editor at Chemical & Engineering News. Before joining C&EN, she worked as a freelance science journalist, writing for outlets including Nature, Discover, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, New Scientist, and more.

Amanda Mascarelli is the managing editor of SAPIENS, a digital magazine covering anthropology for a popular audience. Prior to this role, she spent more than a decade as a freelance science journalist. Her work has appeared in Audubon, Nature, Science, New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.

Robin Mejia runs a program in statistics and human rights at Carnegie Mellon University. Her journalism has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Science, CNN, and other outlets.

Susan Moran reports on the environment, energy, and health. Her work appears in Popular Science, Discover, the New York Times, the Economist, Nature, etc. She is also a host and producer of KGNU Radio's science show.

Bryn Nelson is a former microbiologist and Newsday journalist whose freelance reporting on science, medicine and the environment has appeared in the New York Times, NBCNews.com, Mosaic, Nature, and many other publications.

Michelle Nijhuis writes about science and conservation for National Geographic and other publications. She is the editor of the Atlantic's Life Up Close series, the co-editor of The Science Writers' Handbook, and the author of The Science Writers' Essay Handbook.

Stephen Ornes works from a shed in his backyard in Nashville. He has written for Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, Science News for Students, and other publications, and is the author of Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations.

Kendall Powell writes and edits stories about biomedical science for places such as the Washington Post, Nature, Knowable, Mosaic, and the American Cancer Society from Lafayette, Colo.

Hillary Rosner reports on environmental issues for publications including National Geographic, Wired, the New York Times, Men's Journal, and High Country News. She is also a contributing editor at the website bioGraphic.

Anne Sasso covers global business, energy, metals, mining, petrochemical, fertilizer, and logistics markets. She provides analysis and commercial intelligence to corporate clients.

Mark Schrope currently works as the director of Schmidt Marine Technology Partners. His work as a freelance journalist has appeared in Nature, the New York Times, Scientific American, Sport Diver, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.

Emily Sohn writes about health, science, complex conservation questions and other subjects for the Washington Post, Nature, NPR, bioGraphic, Hakai, and many other publications. She has written dozens of books and graphic novels for kids.

Brian Vastag is a former science reporter for the Washington Post and has written for many other publications. In 2012 he became disabled by chronic illness and now lives on the island of Kauai.

Andreas von Bubnoff is professor of science communication at Rhine-Waal University, Germany, and an award-winning science journalist and multimedia producer. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Wired, Quanta, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, DIE ZEIT, and elsewhere.

Cameron Walker is a writer and editor in California. She has written for Hakai, Discover, High Country News, Nature, and The Last Word on Nothing.

Sarah Webb is senior science writer for the Krell Institute and a freelance journalist and editor in Chattanooga, Tenn. Her work has appeared in Nature, Discover, Science News, Chemical & Engineering News, and many other publications.