Cynthia Graber is an award-winning audio and print reporter whose work has been featured in venues including Orion, the New Yorker, Slate, NovaNext and many more, and on a variety of public radio shows and podcasts. She won the Kavli Science Journalism Award for an audio documentary, and her feature story on the role of bioelectricity in regeneration was awarded the International Physics Journalism award. She spent 2012-2013 as a Knight fellow at MIT and followed that with a UC Berkeley Food and Farming fellowship, overseen by Michael Pollan.

In 2014, Cynthia co-launched Gastropod, a podcast about the science and history of food. Within two years, the show won two major awards and is regularly featured on a variety of best-of lists (including Wired’s favorite scripted podcasts). Cynthia and her co-host performed their first live podcast show in 2016 at Boston’s Museum of Science. She also regularly teaches audio production and podcasting.

My current interests are focused on developing regenerative strategies for bone and skeletal muscle tissue engineering. In specific, on-going projects focus on the employment of mechanical stimulation regimes in bioreactors to improve engraftment of bone and muscle substitutes. The compliance of substrates has a profound influence on the stem cell response and this effect is enhanced by applied mechanical loads. Studying the relative impact of these cues on directed cellular differentiation is important to develop appropriate materials for musculoskeletal interfaces, where there is a steep gradient in mechanical properties. This work is being carried out in close collaboration with Dr. Joseph Wenke’s group at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.

In support of the tissue regeneration efforts, I work on the correlation of in vivo bone and vessel morphology using micro computed tomography or alternative image bases analyses to scaffold structure and bio-mechanical properties. The spatial architecture of tissue grafts and the resulting initial mechanical properties including strength and permeability directs the efficacy of these grafts to act as suitable substrates to direct tissue regeneration. The non-destructive evaluation of these properties along the translation of the scaffold from material synthesis, through in vitro testing and in vivo evaluation provides a powerful analysis tool with built in feedback for design improvements.

Curt Guyette joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan in the fall of 2013 as interim media liaison, and then was named investigative reporter, a newly created position funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation. He writes about exclusively issues involving emergency management and open government. Before joining the ACLU of Michigan, Curt worked as a print journalist for more than 30 years, including 18 years at the Metro Times, an alternative newsweekly based in Detroit. Guyette graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a BA in English writing. He is the recipient of numerous local, state and national journalism awards. The State Bar of Michigan has honored him three times for his outstanding coverage of legal issues. In January he was honored as the Michigan Press Association’s “Journalist of the Year.”

Joe Hanson is a biologist, science writer, and the creator and host of PBS Digital Studios’ science education series It’s Okay To Be Smart, which takes a fun-loving look at the world of science through the lens of pop culture, history, and comedy. Before his days as a science communicator and journalist, he received a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Joe’s writing has been featured in WIRED, Nautilus, The Open Laboratory, and Science Blogging: The Essential Guide. He once had a Twitter conversation with an astronaut while they were in space, which is pretty neat.

Laura Helmuth is the health, science and environment editor for the Washington Post. She was previously the director of digital news for National Geographic, science and health editor for Slate, science editor for Smithsonian magazine, and a news editor for Science magazine. She is the incoming president of the National Association of Science Writers.

For pitches, she is interested in breaking news, features, and profile ideas from any field of science. Stories that have a politics or policy angle are particularly welcome.

Vanessa Hill is an Australian science communicator and educator. She is the creator, writer and host of BrainCraft, a PBS series exploring psychology, neuroscience and human behaviour. With a background in science education, Vanessa is passionate about enthusing more young people about STEM subjects.

Vanessa previously worked for CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, as a science educator, social media advisor and spokesperson. As a science communicator, she hopes to spark curiosity in others and show how science is human, relevant and amazing.