Speakers

Speakers

Type one or more letters

WK
NASW workshop
NH
CASW New Horizons in Science
LL
Lunch with a Luminary

  • WK
    Flora Lichtman

    Host, The Adaptors podcast

    Flora Lichtman, the host of the climate-focused podcast, The Adaptors, has been covering science and the environment for the last decade. Her science reporting — radio, video and writing — has appeared on NPR, in The New York Times, Popular Science, and The Atlantic, and in a number of film festivals. She is the co-director of the New York Times Op-Docs series —Animated Life— — short films on pivotal scientific discoveries, animated with paper puppets. Prior to The Adaptors, Flora was the managing editor of video and substitute host for Science Friday, a two-hour live public radio show. She is co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us. Before getting into journalism, she worked at a NATO lab, studying marine mammals in the Mediterranean. (A good gig.)

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Robin Lloyd

    News editor, Scientific American

    Robin Lloyd is Scientific American's news editor. Her past job experience includes working as a senior editor for LiveScience.com and SPACE.com, a science writer at the American Museum of Natural History, and a reporter at CNN.com, the Pasadena Star-News and City News Service in Los Angeles. She has 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. She currently serves on the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

    Speaking:

    Organizing:

  • WK
    Elizabeth Lopatto

    Science editor, The Verge

    Elizabeth Lopatto is the science editor of The Verge, a website about the future. Previously, she’s written for outlets including Bloomberg, Businessweek, The Awl, and The Daily Beast.

    Pitch Guidelines

    To pitch me, write a paragraph explaining your story, your sourcing, your angle, and why your piece is a Verge piece. Tell me what part of your story is new, and why we need to write about the topic now; convince me. Typically, we look for short reports of ~1,000 words, though we also run features. The features pitching process usually takes longer, and will involve phone conversations before a contract goes out. Please do not send an unsolicited draft; I do not have time to read it.

    Speaking:

  • NH
    Paulo Lozano

    Associate professor and chair of the graduate program, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Paulo Lozano heads MIT's Space Propulsion Laboratory, where his group develops highly efficient, compact ion thrusters for small spacecraft. His main interests are in plasma physics, space propulsion, ion beam physics, small satellites and nanotechnology. His work on micro-propulsion, which is sponsored by NASA, defense research agencies, the National Science Foundation and other public and private sources, earned a Young Investigator Program Award from the U.S. Air Force and the "Future Mind" award from Quo Science magazine and the Discovery Channel. A recipient of MIT's Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award for his contributions to the research experience of undergraduate students, Lozano teaches space and rocket propulsion, fluid mechanics and plasma physics and was recently named faculty director of MIT Mexico. An associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he served on the Asteroid Mitigation and NASA Technology Roadmaps panels of the National Research Council. Lozano earned his master's and doctoral degrees in space propulsion at MIT. Twitter: @PauloLozanoMIT

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Naomi Lubick

    Freelance science writer

    Naomi Lubick is a freelance science writer based in Stockholm, Sweden. Trained as a geologist, she has written on earth and environmental sciences since 2000 (she has been a member of NASW for nearly as long), covering such topics as pharmaceuticals in the environment, nanomaterials, air and water pollution, and more. Her work has been published in New Scientist, Nature, Science, C&EN and elsewhere.

    As part of her research as a 2014-2015 Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she explored the business of journalism, interviewing reporters who involved in science, environmental and local news startups. Read her case studies at Poynter (or find links on her blog, naomilubick.wordpress.com).

    Photo Credit: Per Westergård

    Organizing:

  • WK
    Brendan Maher

    Features editor, Nature

    Brendan Maher is a news feature editor with Nature magazine where he has been trying to tell long and engaging stories about biology since 2007. Prior to that he has been a senior editor at The Scientist, an intern at the Baltimore Sun and apprentice to a chimney sweep.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    David Malakoff

    Deputy news editor, Science

    David Malakoff is a deputy news editor at Science in Washington, D.C. He oversees the magazine's coverage of politics, policy and money, as well as energy and the environment. He has also worked as a freelancer for numerous outlets, and was a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's Science Desk. He was a co-creator of NPR's Climate Connections series, which won numerous prizes. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., David is a graduate of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

  • WK
    Apoorva Mandavilli

    Editor in chief, Spectrum (formerly SFARI.org)

    Apoorva Mandavilli is founding editor and editor-in-chief of Spectrum (formerly SFARI.org), the leading autism news site. She is an adjunct faculty member in New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and co-founder of Culture Dish, an organization that aims to enhance diversity in science writing. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker online, Slate, Nature, Popular Science and Discover, among others.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    James Marcus

    Executive editor, Harper's

    James Marcus is the executive editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot-Com Juggernaut (2004), as well as seven translations from the Italian, the most recent being Giacomo Casanova's The Duel (2011). His work has appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Antioch Review, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, and Best American Essays 2009. He also edited and introduced_ Second Read: Writers Look Back at Classic Works of Reportage_ (2011). His next book, Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Emerson in Fifteen Installments, will be published in 2016.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Amanda Mascarelli

    Managing editor, SAPIENS

    Amanda Mascarelli is managing editor of SAPIENS, an online publication launching in January 2016 that is devoted to covering anthropological science. Prior to taking on this new role in May 2015, Mascarelli spent a decade as a freelance journalist. She wrote about topics ranging from health and neuroscience to energy, climate change and ecology. Her stories have appeared in Audubon magazine, Nature, Science, New Scientist, Science News for Students, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yoga Journal and more. She is based in Denver, Colorado.

    Pitch Guidelines

    SAPIENS, set to launch in January 2016, is an editorially independent online publication sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

    The publication’s goals are to bring anthropology out of the realm of the academic and into everyday discussions of people, places, culture and pop-culture, technology, the environment, and more. Through news coverage, features, commentaries, reviews, and more, SAPIENS provides a public platform for anthropological research as well as for anthropological insights into current events. SAPIENS features writing by journalist contributors as well as experts across all fields of anthropology.

    We are primarily interested in feature pitches; our features range from 1,200 to 2,500 words. (We do not have a travel budget at this time.) Once we launch, we will also be accepting pitches for news coverage. We are looking for features that bring our readers compelling storytelling and careful reporting about important trends and developments across all fields of anthropology. SAPIENS will cover all of the sub-disciplines of anthropology, including social/cultural anthropology, linguistics, biological anthropology, and archaeology. It isn’t enough for stories to be loosely related to anthropology—all of SAPIENS’ coverage will be tied to concrete anthropological research, theories and thinking.

    SAPIENS features might put into perspective a new discovery about ancient DNA, delve into the origins of the English language, profile a researcher who is overturning a long-held view in the field, or explore how a community is responding to climate change through shifts in diet and farming practices. Although we are open to pitches across all sub-fields of anthropology, we are very keen on receiving pitches about social and cultural anthropology, which is under-represented in mainstream media coverage. One thing to keep in mind when pitching is that we want SAPIENS stories to stand out as anthropology stories; we want to get to know the anthropologists in the stories, and to learn what roles anthropologists are playing in shaping, resolving, or helping us to understand the conflicts and issues at the heart of the story.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Amy Maxmen

    Freelance journalist

    Amy Maxmen is freelance journalist who covers science policy, biomedicine, evolution, and much more for outlets including National Geographic, Newsweek, Nature, Wired, Nautilus, and Al Jazeera. Her work has been anthologized in the Best American Nature and Science Writing 2015. She has a Ph.D. in evolution from Harvard University.

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • WK
    Hal Mayforth

    Illustrator

    Hal Mayforth is a fine artist and humorous illustrator with a deep love of science. Hal's illustration has been published in many national magazines and newspapers, including Science, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Outside, Road and Track, Reader’s Digest, Mother Jones, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe. His paintings have been featured in exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including the Housatonic Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut; the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, CT; the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles; the Sylvia Schmidt Gallery in New Orleans; Monserrat College in Beverly, Massachusetts; the Wood Gallery of the Vermont College of Fine Art in Montpelier; the Virginia Lynch Gallery in Tiverton, Rhode Island; the Furchgott-Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne, Vermont; Studio Place Arts in Barre, VT; the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT; The Flynn Center for Performing Arts in Burlington, VT and The Quimby Gallery at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, VT. Twitter: @may4th3

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Maryn McKenna

    Journalist and author

    Maryn McKenna is an independent journalist specializing in public health, global health and food policy. She is a contributor to National Geographic and writes for Wired, the Atlantic, Slate, and the Guardian, among other publications. She is the author of the award-winning books Superbug (Free Press/S&S 2010) and Beating Back the Devil (Free Press/S&S 2004); her next book, about antibiotic use in agriculture, will be published by National Geographic Books in 2016. She is a senior fellow of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University and spoke at TED 2015. marynmckenna.com

    Speaking:

  • WK
    A'ndrea Elyse Messer

    Senior science writer, Research Communications, Penn State University

    A'ndrea Messer has been at PSU for more than 26 years. She writes news about earth and mineral sciences, engineering, materials, anthropology, and the physical sciences for the general public. She edits stories from other science writers in Research Communications and other parts of the university. Messer oversees external distribution of research news stories and fields media requests. At various times before coming to Penn State, she was a reporter, technical writer, journal editor and science writer for an engineering society. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. An active NASW member, Messer has served on the organization’s Executive Board since 2012, and is a member of the Internet and PIO Committees. In past years, she was a member of the NASW Programs Committee and chaired the ad hoc committee that upgraded NASW’s Code of Ethics for Science Writers.

    Speaking:

  • LL
    David Mindell

    Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, Program in Science, Technology, and Society; Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Prof. Mindell’s current work as a historian and engineer focuses on the interplay between automation and human oversight in the control of spacecraft, aircraft, and underwater vehicles; other research interests include the history of automation in the military, the history of electronics and computing, theories of engineering systems, deep ocean robotic archaeology, and the history of space exploration. He is the author of War, Technology and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor (2000), Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (2002), and Digital Apollo: Human and Machine Spaceflight (2011). Mindell is founder and director of MIT's "DeepArch" research group in technology, archaeology, and the deep sea, and was co-leader of a 10-year collaborative project with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Greek Ministry of Culture to explore the deep Aegean sea for ancient and bronze-age shipwrecks using autonomous underwater vehicles.

    Mindell received his B.S. in electrical engineering and his B.A. in literature from Yale University in 1988, and his Ph.D. in history of technology from MIT in 1996. Before coming to MIT he worked as a staff engineer in the Deep Submergence Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he remains a visiting investigator. At MIT, he teaches courses that combine engineering and the history of technology, including a doctoral seminar in engineering systems. He also teaches "Engineering Apollo: The Moon Project as a Complex System," which integrates technical, political, and operational perspectives on the history of space exploration.

    Speaking:

Pages

Brought to you by