Laura Helmuth is the science and health editor for Slate magazine, based in Washington, D.C., and the vice president of the National Association of Science Writers. She was previously the science editor for Smithsonian magazine and a writer and editor for Science magazine’s news department and its daily news site, ScienceNOW. She serves on the boards of SFARI.org and High Country News. She has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California at Berkeley.

Pitch Guidelines

Helmuth considers a pitch the start of a conversation; feel free to email her a few paragraphs to introduce the idea and explain your angle on it. Slate is open to covering all fields of science. It helps if a science or health story also has a political, cultural, or counter-intuitive angle. Slate is particularly interested in stories that have an argument or opinion, and stories that make you mad or make you laugh.