Steve Johnson is a multimedia journalist and adjunct lecturer at the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida.

Specializing in backpack journalism, Johnson has worked some of the largest stories in the past decade including the 2012 London Olympics, the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a multitude of NCAA national championships.
After receiving his bachelor of science in journalism from UF, he joined the staff at the College to develop his skills as a multimedia storyteller and lecturer. His classes (both at the undergraduate and master’s level) focus on the various levels of impact visual journalism has on readers using different platforms to consume news.

His work has been feature online and in newspapers and magazines throughout the world for some the largest news organizations including The New York Times, Reuters, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The European Pressphoto Agency and The Miami Herald.
Johnson is 23, and lives with his German shepherd, Titan, in Gainesville. He continues to focus on better ways to tell a story through visuals while lecturing throughout the country hoping to inspire the next generation of great storytellers.

Atif Kukaswadia is a currently a PhD candidate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. According to his father, an accountant, Atif was becoming a cancer researcher. That’s what he proudly told his friends. Without any scientists in his family there were no reference points for Atif’s chosen career – in epidemiology. An ologist is an ologist, right?

In his delivery of a TedX talk at Queens, Atif explained that when a paper he’d authored while in his master’s program gained media attention, he realized he didn’t know how to talk to the media, which means he realized that not everyone talks like a scientist. Eureka! He could thank his dad for that keen perception.

Science is awesome, Atif says. Non-scientists need to know how awesome it is, and that starts with understanding why scientists are scientists.
Atif writes for the PLOS Blogs network when he’s not researching how the social environment shapes our lives and personalities. He actively promotes and supports science outreach and dissemination through his twitter feed, @MrEpid, and his blog, www.MrEpidemiology.com.

Robin Lloyd, a science writer going back to the Galileo mission to Jupiter, is Scientific American’s news editor, responsible for planning, editing and assigning stories for SA's Web site and for managing its home page. She also oversees SA's social media efforts. Previously, she was a senior editor for LiveScience.com and SPACE.com. She has additional experience in print journalism (Pasadena Star-News); wire service journalism (City News Service in Los Angeles); and network online journalism (CNN.com). She worked for five years as a science publicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and received a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the 1998-1999 academic year. Lloyd currently serves on the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, and speaks regularly to early-career science writers, science journalists and students about the profession of science writing.

Pitch specs for Scientific American:
We seek enterprised, contextualizing, bigger-picture, or trend stories about science, health and
technology, or unexpected angles on journal article news that others won't have. Another way
of putting it: we seek coverage of emerging areas of science that are under the radar and
haven't been covered by mainstream science news outlets. No profiles, Q&As, or reviews,
please. We typically assign 700-word stories. Be aware that our staff and many other writers
already closely monitor the better known journals (Cell, JAMA, NEJM, Nature, Science, PLoS,
PNAS), so pitches from these journals are harder to land with us.

In writing, we seek pitches that are no longer than four paragraphs long. Ideally, pitches make a
point, include a draft nut paragraph in the 1st or 2nd sentence, expand on the idea for a few
paragraphs, and reveal what the story will state, rather than providing background.

The pitch also should briefly answer these questions: Why would Scientific American's audience
want to know about this topic? Why should we run this story now rather than five years ago or
five months from now, for instance? And what are the broader implications of these findings, or
how can this topic/finding help our readers understand themselves or their world?

Contact: rlloyd@sciam.com

Rick Loverd is the director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences. The program's mission is to connect scientists, engineers and doctors with Hollywood writers, producers, directors and actors with the view of helping to ensure accurate portrayal of science in film, on television and in other entertainment outlets. Launched in November 2008, the Exchange has helped filmmakers on about 700 films and television programs, including Iron Man 2, Thor, Tron: Legacy, The Avengers, Star Trek: Into the Darkness, Lost, Fringe, Green Lantern, Castle, Bourne: Legacy, The Good Wife and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In addition to his work with The Exchange, Rick also has eight years of entertainment industry experience including positions on the television series Friday Night Lights on NBC and Boston Public on FOX, and at talent agency Creative Artists Agency.

Jennifer Mansfield is an attorney in the media practice unit at Holland & Knight, one of the nation’s largest law firms. Holland & Knight has a long history of representing some of the industry’s leading broadcasters, publishers and Internet companies. The firm advises clients who distribute information by any means — newspaper, television, radio, motion picture, satellite and Internet — on just about every aspect of content.