Speakers

Speakers

Type one or more letters

WK
NASW workshop
NH
CASW New Horizons in Science
LS
Lunch with a scientist

  • NH
    Amina Ann Qutub

    Assistant professor, Department of Bioengineering, Rice University

    Amina Qutub is a bioengineer and tech entrepreneur. Her research interests are in neurovascular systems biology, cell engineering, and hypoxic response. Her lab’s research vision is to harness human cells’ natural behavior in order to understand and improve health. She uses computer simulations integrated with experiments to uncover how cells communicate during growth. Applications of this work are identifying new ways to slow cancerous progression and regenerate healthy human tissue. Amina received her PhD in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley and UCSF. She joined the Rice faculty following her postdoctoral training in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Qutub has authored or coauthored more than 30 publications, cofounded the tech startup DiBS, and served as scientific lead of a 2014-15 DREAM Biomedical Data Algorithm Challenge after winning a 2013 DREAM subchallenge for interactive data visualizations. She is a 2012 National Science Foundation CAREER and 2015 NSF Neural & Cognitive Systems awardee.

    Speaking:

  • NH
    Mónica Ramirez-Andreotta

    Assistant professor, Soil, Water and Environmental Science and Division of Community, Environment and Policy, University of Arizona

    Mónica Ramirez-Andreotta holds a PhD in soil, water and environmental science from the University of Arizona, where she returned to teach after serving as a research fellow and junior faculty member at Northeastern University. She also holds a master of public administration degree from Columbia University and undergraduate degrees in art, ecology and evolutionary biology. Her research interests include developing a fundamental understanding of the fate and transport of contaminants in the environment, with a primary focus on plant-soil systems and phytotechnologies to improve soil and air quality. In parallel, she is building citizen science programs to increase public participation in environmental health research, developing low cost environmental monitoring tools to improve exposure estimates, and designing effective risk communication and data report-back strategies to improve environmental health literacy. Ramírez-Andreotta is dedicated to, and has been successful in reaching underserved populations. Her philosophy is that in order to successfully engage communities and students, it is essential to address critical environmental health problems identified by the community and work collaboratively through the problem-solving and research process.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    April Reese

    Managing editor, COSMOS

    April Reese is managing editor at Cosmos, an Australian science magazine with a global reach. She edits features, news and other sections of the print magazine and oversees the production of each issue. Previously, she was an editor at Discover and spent more than a decade as a staff writer at E&E Publishing’s Greenwire and Land Letter, where she also served as editor in the early 2000s. She has freelanced for various publications over the years, including the Christian Science Monitor, High Country News, atlantic.com and smithsonian.com. She holds a master’s degree in environmental studies from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and bachelor’s degrees in English and Geography from Frostburg State University in Maryland. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

    Speaking:

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • WK
    Julie Rehmeyer

    Freelance

    Julie Rehmeyer is a math and science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Discover, Science News, and many others. Rehmeyer has received the Santa Fe Institute journalism fellowship and the Ted Scripps environmental journalism fellowship. She is currently writing a memoir on the science and politics of chronic fatigue syndrome and other poorly understood illnesses, to be published by Rodale Press in 2017.

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • WK
    Czerne Reid

    Lecturer, University of Florida College of Medicine

    Czerne Reid, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. She is a recipient of the UF College of Medicine Exemplary Teacher Award. Czerne also serves from time to time as an adjunct lecturer in the UF College of Journalism and Communications. She is co-chair of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Education Committee, which organizes a popular annual undergraduate travel fellowship, mentoring program and science writing internship fair for up-and-coming science writers. Czerne has worked as a science writer and reporter at several outlets over the years, including UF Health Communications, The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Salinas Californian (in John Steinbeck’s hometown), the Stanford News Service and the Stanford School of Medicine Office of Communication and Public Affairs. As a 2007 Kaiser Media Fellow, Czerne completed an award-winning newspaper series on the impact of HIV/AIDS in South Carolina. She has received awards for her writing from the South Carolina Press Association and the South Carolina Medical Association, and fellowships from the NASW and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW). Czerne earned her Ph.D. in environmental chemistry at Emory University, and a graduate certificate in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her bachelor’s degree in chemistry is from the University of the West Indies, Mona, in her native Jamaica.

    Speaking:

    Organizing:

  • NH
    Mark Riedl

    Associate professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Mark Riedl is director of Georgia Tech’s Entertainment Intelligence Lab. His research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, and storytelling. Riedl's primary research contributions are in the area of artificial intelligence approaches to automated story generation and interactive storytelling for entertainment, education, and training. The goal of his narrative intelligence research is to discover new computational algorithms and models that can facilitate the development of intelligent computer systems that can reason about narrative in order to be better communicators, entertainers, and educators. Riedl earned a PhD degree in 2004 from North Carolina State University. Before arriving at Georgia Tech in 2007, he was a Research Scientist at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. He has been the recipient of a DARPA Young Faculty Award and an NSF CAREER Award.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Alberto I. Roca

    Executive Director, DiverseScholar

    Alberto I. Roca, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the non-profit, DiverseScholar, whose mission is to diversify the doctoral (STEM) workforce, tech industry, and the science communication profession. Dr. Roca is a first-generation Peruvian-American from Houston, Texas, who received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While conducting postdoctoral research, he created the web portal MinorityPostdoc.org, founded the Postdoc Committee of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), and co-founded the Diversity Committee of the National Postdoctoral Association. Dr. Roca works with Ph.D. trainees directly as a career coach and also connects institutional diversity stakeholders to job candidates especially for tenure-track faculty positions. Since 2011 as Editor, Dr. Roca has been publishing/overseeing original written works for his DiverseScholar magazine on the issues of diversity, STEM, and higher education. In the journalism sector, his activities encourage minority reporters to learn about STEM/health news stories as well as educates minority scientists about science communication skills/careers. His expertise in this area led to the chapter on "Using Social Media to Diversify Science" for the book Science Blogging: The Essential Guide. These #SciComm activities have been facilitated by a grant from the National Association of Science Writers that created the DiverseScholar travel awards to attend the ScienceWriters conference. In recognition of his achievements, Dr. Roca has received the University of California-Irvine Chancellor's Living Our Values Award, the SACNAS Presidential Service Award, and the top NCWIT Flash Tank prize for his pitch on the topic of diversity in tech journalism.

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • WK
    Adam Rogers

    Deputy editor, Wired

    As deputy editor at Wired, Adam Rogers edits features for the print magazine and manages the editing of longform stories for the digital edition. Rogers’ feature “The Angels’ Share,” a detective story about a mysterious fungus that lives on whiskey fumes, won the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for magazine writing and was the inspiration for his New York Times bestselling book Proof: The Science of Booze, which won the 2015 IACP prize and was shortlisted for the PEN/EO Wilson science writing award. By some measures, Rogers' article on the neuroscience of why some people saw the color of a picture of a dress differently than others was the second most-read thing on the Internet in 2015.

    Rogers was also a writer and correspondent for Wired Science, a television show co-produced by the magazine and PBS in 2007. He was also the host of The Storyboard, a Wired podcast. Prior to joining Wired, Rogers was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and before that he was a writer and reporter at Newsweek.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Julia Rosen

    Freelance journalist

    Julia Rosen is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about earth and environmental science for Nature, Science, Orion, High Country News, the Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, and Nautilus, among other places. She is a contributor to Scientific American’s 60-Second Science podcast. Before she became a writer, Julia was a ski bum and a scientist who studied polar ice cores. Follow Julia on Twitter: @ScienceJulia.

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • NH
    Connie Roser-Renouf

    Associate research professor, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University

    Connie Roser-Renouf’s research focuses on understanding how diverse audiences use, interpret and respond to information on the issue of climate change. The objective of this work is to identify effective communication strategies that inform and engage the public, while contributing to the theoretical literature on science communication, risk communication and social marketing. Roser-Renouf, who earned her PhD in communication research at Stanford University, has served as co-principal investigator for the Yale/GMU audience research program “Climate Change in the American Mind.” Through surveys they have identified “six Americas,” distinct audience segments that hold divergent beliefs on climate change and favor different responses to the threat. The daughter of a newspaper editor, Roser-Renouf considers the journalist’s job one of “monumental import” in a time when opinion and politics are highly polarized.

    Speaking:

  • WK
    Hillary Rosner

    Independent journalist

    Hillary Rosner is a freelance journalist whose work appears in National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, High Country News, and many other publications. She is also a contributing editor at the websites bioGraphic and Sapiens. She has received many awards and fellowships for her work, including two AAAS-Kavli awards and a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship.

    Organizing:

    Moderating:

  • WK
    Anna Rothschild

    Producer, Gross Science from NOVA

    Anna Rothschild is a digital producer for NOVA and the creator and host of the YouTube series Gross Science from NOVA and PBS Digital Studios. She has a background in science journalism and is an experienced video editor, animator, and host. Anna is the recipient of the American Institute of Physics' 2012 Science Communication Award for New Media and their 2015 Science Communication Award for Broadcast/Mew Media. Anna has a bachelors in biology from Brown University, and a masters in science journalism from NYU.

    Speaking:

  • NH
    Siddhartha Roy

    Environmental engineer and PhD candidate, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

    Siddhartha Roy is completing his PhD in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. He works with Marc Edwards researching failure mechanisms in potable water infrastructure, specifically in copper and non-leaded plumbing. Sid also served as the student leader and communications director for the Virginia Tech “Flint Water Study” research team that helped uncover the citywide lead contamination and other corrosion-caused water quality issues in Flint, Michigan.

    Speaking:

  • LS
    Ruth Ruprecht

    Scientist, director of Texas Biomed AIDS Research Program

    HIV infections continue to be a global health threat, and there is still no vaccine or cure available. Dr. Ruprecht’s research is focused on lentiviruses such as HIV, where she develops strategies for treatment and prevention. Her special interest is to develop vaccines against HIV/AIDS, particularly against the world’s most prevalent subtype of HIV (HIV-C) in Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Her research strategy is to:

    • Develop vaccines to block HIV at portals of entry: mucosal sites
    • Construct multi-component vaccines that enlist as many host defense mechanisms as possible

    Dr. Ruprecht was the first to demonstrate the in vivo safety and efficacy of AZT drug treatment in animal models, including prevention of maternal virus transmission. AZT later became the first FDA-approved AIDS drug and the first drug to prevent HIV transmission from an infected woman to her newborn. Dr. Ruprecht has been collaborating with scientists in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa, and is now Director of Texas Biomed’s AIDS research program. She has been studying lentiviruses since the discovery of HIV and has worked with non- human primate (NHP) models for more than 25 years.

    Speaking:

Pages

Brought to you by
*