Session 1: “Engaging Non-Scientific Audiences”
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Emily LakdawallaEmily Lakdawalla is a senior editor and blogger for The Planetary Society. She is a passionate advocate for the exploration of all of the worlds of our solar system. Through blogs, photos, videos, podcasts, print articles, Twitter, and other media, Emily shares the adventure of space exploration with the world. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in geology from Amherst College and a Master of Science degree in planetary geology from Brown University. She has written and edited the Planetary Society Blog since 2005, reporting on space news, explaining planetary science, and sharing beautiful space photos. She appears weekly on the Society's Planetary Radio podcast and oversaw a portion of Society's Red Rover Goes to Mars education and public outreach program. Emily has been an Administrator of the forum UnmannedSpaceflight.com since 2005, supporting a worldwide community of amateur space image processors. She is also a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope magazine and a frequent host of Cosmoquest Google+ Hangouts. |
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Courtney HumphriesCourtney Humphries is a freelance journalist and author specializing in science, health, and nature. She writes the Boston Globe's Health Answers column and is a frequent contributor to its Ideas section. She is a contributing editor for Technology Review, and her work has appeared in publications such as New Scientist, Wired, Science, and Nature. Humphries is author of Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan....And the World, a natural history of pigeons published by Smithsonian Books, which was acclaimed in the New York Times Book Review, New Scientist, and Audubon. Humphries is a graduate of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing. She lives in Boston. |
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Christine PulliamChristine Pulliam is a public affairs specialist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This means that she has the great pleasure of educating people about the latest cosmic discoveries and astronomical mysteries revealed. One of her main tasks is writing and distributing press releases about CfA research. She also writes articles for publications like Sky & Telescope magazine. In addition, she helps coordinate and conduct the many public events at the CfA such as lectures and star parties. She also gives public talks on various astronomical topics. Prior to the CfA, she was a science communicator at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. She has a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. |
Session 2: Science Writing for a Cause
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Michael LemonickMichael D. Lemonick is a senior writer at Climate Central, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating nonpartisan science-based journalism about climate. Prior to joining Climate Central, he spent nearly 21 years at TIME Magazine, where he wrote more than 50 cover stories on topics ranging from climate change to genomics to astrophysics before stepping down as a Senior Science Writer in early 2007. Has also written five popular books on astronomy; his latest, Mirror Earth, is on the search for Earthlike exoplanets. He has also written for Discover, Scientific American, National Geographic, Yale E360, Newsweek and other magazines. He teaches science journalism at Princeton, and has taught at Columbia, Johns Hopkins and New York University as well. He holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College and an M.S. in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. |
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Amanda MartinezAmanda R. Martinez is a science writer and multimedia producer who focuses on conservation, neuroscience, and marine biology. She's written for The Atlantic, Scientific American, Seed magazine, and Science News for Kids, and produced pieces for PRI's Living on Earth and the Marine Biological Laboratory, among others. Amanda holds a master’s degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in playwriting from Yale University. |
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Joe RomanJoe Roman is a conservation biologist, writer, and researcher at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Whale and Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act, winner of the 2012 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. His research has appeared in Science, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and other journals. He has written for Audubon, New Scientist, The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. Editor ‘n’ Chef of eattheinvaders.org, a site dedicated to “fighting invasive species, one bite at a time,” Joe recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Brazil. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and his Master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. He was born and raised in New York and counts King Kong as an early conservation influence. |
Session 3: Communicating Science Through Fiction
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Alan BrodyAlan Brody is a Professor of Theater at MIT. He is a Co-Director of the Catalyst Collaborative, a collaboration between MIT and the Central Square Theater dedicated to creating and presenting plays that deepen public understanding about science. His plays have won numerous awards, including the Rosenthal and Eisener Awards. Three of his plays, Five Scenes From Life, Greytop in Love and One-on-One, were developed at the Missouri Repertory Theater. Greytop in Love was produced at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia in March 1998 starring Kim Hunter in one of her last performances. Medea's Nurse was presented at the Riverside Stage Theater in Norwalk, Connecticut in September 1998. The dramatic oratorio, Reckoning Time: A Song of Walt Whitman, written in collaboration with composer Peter Child, premiered at Jordan Hall with the John Oliver Chorale in March of 1995. Mr. Brody is also the author of two novels, Coming To (1973) and Hey Lenny, Hey Jack (1975). |
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Joe HaldemanThe youngest writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Joe Haldeman has earned steady awards over his 44-year career: his novels The Forever War and Forever Peace both made clean sweeps of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and he has won four more Hugos and Nebulas for other novels and shorter works. Three times he’s won the Rhysling Award for best science fiction poem of the year. In 2012 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The final novel in a trilogy, Earthbound, is out (after Marsbound in 2008 and Starbound in 2009). Ridley Scott has bought the movie rights to The Forever War. The collection The Best of Joe Haldeman is about to appear. Joe’s next novel is Work Done for Hire, out in December 2013. When he’s not writing or teaching – a professor at M.I.T., he has taught every fall semester since 1983 -- he paints and bicycles and spends as much time as he can out under the stars as an amateur astronomer. He’s been married for 47 years to Mary Gay Potter Haldeman. |
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Sneha Veeragoudar HarrellSneha Veeragoudar Harrell, Ph.D, is a learning scientist whose research centers on the development of theory and design for fostering computational agency among marginalized groups. She has led projects using virtual worlds to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning for students expelled from mainstream classrooms. She conducted a year-long critical ethnography in an independent school for international female refugee adolescents. Dr. Veeragoudar Harrell completed her Ph.D. in Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology in the Cognition and Development Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds an M.A. in Computing and Education from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Computer Science also from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently serves on the Social Sciences Advisory Board for the National Center for Women in Information Technology and is an educational technology consultant based out of Cambridge, MA.
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Session 4: Sharing Science with Scientists
Thalia RubioThalia Rubio is a lecturer in the MIT Writing and Communication Center, where she frequently works with graduate students and post-docs who need to present their ideas clearly to different audiences. Situations include: application essays, interviews for academic positions, grant proposals, and presentations to venture capitalists, as well as interfacing with other departments at the university. In addition, academics and professionals often need to describe their work to non-technical audiences in social settings. The ability to clearly and persuasively present technical information to different audiences can be a powerful force in your career development. |
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Bethany HalfordBethany Halford trained in medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. Shortly after finishing her doctorate in 2002, she traded her lab coat in for a laptop and has been working as science writer ever since. She has spent the last decade on the staff of Chemical & Engineering News-- the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society--where she is currently a senior editor and writes about organic chemistry and nanotechnology. She has also written for National Geographic News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Baltimore Sun, and ASEE Prism. |
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Alyssa GoodmanAlyssa Goodman is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, and a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution. Goodman's research and teaching interests span astronomy, data visualization, and online systems for research and education. In her astronomical pursuits, Goodman and her research group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA study the dense gas between the stars. They are particularly interested in how interstellar gas arranges itself into new stars. In more computationally-oriented efforts, Goodman co-founded The Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) at Harvard. Goodman presently leads a diverse group of researchers, librarians, and software developers in an ongoing effort known as "Seamless Astronomy," aimed directly at developing, refining, and sharing tools that accelerate the pace of scientific research, especially in astronomy. In the world of education, Goodman is best known for her collaborative work on the WorldWide Telescope project at Microsoft Research. Goodman received her undergraduate degree in Physics from MIT in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard in 1989. |
Session 5: Interacting with the Media
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Daniel GrossmanDaniel Grossman has been a print journalist and radio and web producer for 25 years. He has reported from all seven continents including from near both the south and north poles. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and a B.S. in physics, both from MIT. He is a Contributing Editor of National Geographic’s News Watch and contributes frequently to PRI’s program The World. He was has been awarded a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism and an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship. He is author of Deep Water: As Polar Ice Melts, Scientists Debate How High Our Oceans Will Rise, and coauthor of A Scientist’s Guide to Talking with the Media: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. |
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Richard EckelRichard Eckel is the Senior Director of Communications at Microsoft in Cambridge, MA. He is responsible for managing the company’s news and image agendas. Previously he served as the VP of Marketing Communications at Groove Network, VP of Communications at Parametric Technology and Director of Corp Comms at the Lotus Development Corp. He specializes in analyst relations, strategic partnerships, and product marketing. He received his BA in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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Richard Tresch Fienberg, Ph.D.Dr. Rick Fienberg is the American Astronomical Society’s Press Officer and Education & Outreach Coordinator. From 1986 to 2008 he worked at Sky & Telescope magazine, eight of those years as Editor in Chief. In 2008-2009 he was Visiting Scientist in Astronomy & Astrophysics at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Rick earned his B.A. in physics at Rice University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard University; he has done research on the aurora borealis, asteroids, planetary nebulae, active galaxies, and the center of the Milky Way. He helped create the Galileoscope educational telescope kit for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. He’s a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Astronomical Union, which he serves as Secretary of Commission 55, Communicating Astronomy with the Public, has named asteroid 9983 Rickfienberg in his honor. |
Session 6: “World of Non-Academic Publishing”
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Marcia BartusiakMarcia Bartusiak is Professor of the Practice and Executive Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at MIT. Combining her undergraduate training as a journalist with a master’s degree in physics, she has been covering the fields of astronomy and physics for more than three decades and has published in a variety of publications, including Science, Smithsonian, Discover, National Geographic, and Astronomy. The author of five books, her latest is The Day We Found the Universe, about the birth of modern cosmology in the 1920s, which received the History of Science Society’s 2010 Davis Prize for best history of science book for the public. In 2006 Bartusiak received the prestigious Gemant Award from the American Institute of Physics for her significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, and humanistic dimension of physics and in 2008 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. |
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Eugenie Samuel ReichEugenie Samuel Reich is a science writer in Cambridge MA. She has covered physics and astronomy, health, and science policy for a variety of publications including Slate, The Boston Globe and New Scientist. She is the author of a 2009 book Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World, which tells the story of a fraud at Bell Labs in New Jersey, and was a 2009/2010 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. She is an investigative reporter and has uncovered a number of instances of poor oversight and bad science, mostly for Nature, where she is a Contributing Correspondent working out of the journal’s Cambridge office. |
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Daniel EngberDaniel Engber writes about science and culture for Slate, the New York Times Magazine and Wired, among other venues. He is the winner of the National Academies of Science Communication Award in 2012, and the Sex-Positive Journalism Award in 2008. He has been a guest on All Things Considered, Radiolab, Fox News and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and his work has been anthologized in the Best of Technology Writing series as well as Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology. |
Session 7: Communicating with Multimedia and the Web
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Kelle CruzKelle Cruz is an Assistant Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Hunter College and a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Department of Astrophysics. She specializes in observational studies of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs, specifically the link between stars, brown dwarfs, and planets. Born and raised in San Antonio, TX, she received both her BA and PhD in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania. She first came to New York and AMNH in 2004 as an NSF Astronomy and Postdoctoral Fellow. Before returning to New York, she spent two years as Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech in Pasadena, CA. Kelle has consistently been an advocate for professional development training for astronomers. She founded and is the primary contributor to a blog and wiki for professional astronomers AstroBetter.com where the tips of the trade are discussed. Kelle enjoys indoor gardening, playing tennis, and is an avid bicycle commuter.
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Tom Levenson |
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Rob LueRobert A. Lue is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University. Rob earned his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard and has taught undergraduate courses since 1988, garnering recognition as one of Harvard’s foremost leaders in undergraduate education. Rob has a longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary teaching and research, and chaired the faculty committee that developed the first integrated science foundation in the country to serve multiple science majors as well as the needs of pre-medical students. Rob has co-authored several undergraduate biology textbooks and developed award-winning multimedia on several topics, which have been praised for their scientific accuracy, educational utility, and vibrant 3-D portrayals of the cellular world. In 2012, Rob became the faculty director of HarvardX, the Harvard component of the edX partnership in online education with MIT.
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