Tara Haelle specializes in writing about vaccines, infectious disease, pediatrics, prenatal health and other areas of medicine as well as marine biology and environmental science. She is a Forbes contributor whose work also appears in NPR, Scientific American, Slate, Politico, HealthDay, Everyday Health, Medscape, Muse, Science News for Students, Washington Post, Wired and elsewhere. She coauthored The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Guide to the First Four Years, due in April 2016, with Emily Willingham, and she blogs about evidence-based parenting at Red Wine & Applesauce. She enjoys writing for children and blogs for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute at Science & the Sea. She draws on her years as a high school teacher, test prep tutor and college adjunct instructor to inform the way she writes about science and to explain complex ideas in accessible prose. As medical core topic leader for the Association of Health Care Journalists, she creates resources for journalists to report on medical research. Haelle holds a master's in photojournalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and her photography has appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Chicago Sun-Times and Women's Wear Daily. In a past life, she traveled the world—backpacking, hiking, train-hopping and motorbiking through more than 40 countries on six continents while eating strange insects, trekking to ancient ruins and swimming with sharks and then she became a mom to two boys and embarked on a whole new kind of adventure that heavily influences the topics she reports on. Twitter: @tarahaelle