Freelance Science Writer
One of my articles also appears in The Craft of Science Writing and in The Best Science Stories and How They Work.
“Cutting AI Down to Size” (Web version: “‘What’s tinyML? The Global South’s alternative to power-hungry, pricey AI“) – 20 February 2025 (Here’s a Science podcast related to the feature)
“Open with Care” (Web version: “‘Not a free-for-all’: Indigenous communities want limits on how their data is shared“) – 24 October 2024
“Lost in Translation” (Web version: “AI often mangles African languages. Local scientists and volunteers are taking it back to school“) – 21 July 2023 This article was a Finalist for the 2024 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award in the Science Features category (Here’s a Science podcast related to the feature)
“A Divided Defense” (Web version: “The quest to show that biological sex matters in the immune system“) – 15 August 2022 This article was included as a Notable in 2022’s Best American Science and Nature Writing.
“Here Come the Artificial Intelligence Nutritionists” – 14 March 2022
“What to Know About High Cholesterol in Kids” – 13 July 2022
“What the Science Says About the Health Benefits of Vitamins and Supplements” – 28 April 2022
“The Link Between Type 2 Diabetes and Psychiatric Disorders” – 10 March 2022
“A Gut Check for Better Aging” – Summer 2021
“Immunity Starts in the Gut” – Winter 2021
“Promotion pathways: how scientists can chart their industry career trajectory” – 18 September 2023
“Five ways deep learning has transformed image analysis” – 20 September 2022
“Embryo-like models shed fresh light on early human development” – 16 December 2021
“Smartphone science: apps test and track infectious diseases” – 10 May 2021
“Core curriculum: learning to manage a shared microscopy facility” – 08 December 2020
“How DIY technologies are democratizing science” – 17 November 2020
“Got mutation? ‘Base editors’ fix genomes one nucleotide at a time” – 18 November 2019
“Turning discarded DNA into ecology gold” – 25 June 2019
“Building a Silicon Brain” – 1 May 2019
“How artificial intelligence is helping to prevent blindness” – 11 April 2019
“Gene Editing Could One Day Treat Muscle Disorders” – 30 August 2018
“World’s deepest zoo harbors clues to extraterrestrial life” – 15 June 2017
“The Secret Lives of Ants” – 15 March 2017
“Feeling Like a Fraud: The Impostor Phenomenon in Science Writing” – 15 November 2016
“This tiny brain parasite seems to make rodents braver—and it likes humans, too” – 24 October 2016
“What Sensory Receptors Do Outside of Sense Organs” – 1 September 2016
“Inner Earth Is Teeming With Exotic Forms of Life” – 29 February 2016
“Getting Credit for Peer Review” – 8 February 2016
“If Monsoons Were Not Extreme Enough Weather for You, You’re In for a Treat” – 17 July 2015
“The 3D Future of Sound” – 22 April 2015
“Harvesting the clouds: how to make water out of fog” – 8 December 2014
“Curious about everything: Bacteriologist Stanley Falkow never met a microbe he didn’t like.” – September/October 2011
“Hurting? Being in love can help take away your pain” – 13 February 2011
“Lizard Family Ties” – Summer 2011
“How are we Wired?” – March/April 2010
“Energy Locked in Ice” – November/December 2009
“Integrating Multiple -Omics in Individual Cells” – 1 October 2018
“New Methods to Detect CRISPR Off-Target Mutations” – 1 March 2018
“Discovering Novel Antibiotics” – 1 February 2017
“Inner Workings: Bacteria work together to survive Earth’s depths” – 31 January 2017
“Inner Workings: Tiny organisms could reveal how animals evolved” – 16 November 2016
“Inner Workings: Coral reefs at a tipping point” – 10 May 2016
“Journal Club: How to find the rare, disease-resistant individuals who could help forge new therapies” – 11 April 2016
“Inner Workings: Filming chimpanzee gestures” – 11 February 2013
“A New Window to the Underwater World” – 9 November 2016
“A New Star in the Fight Against Multidrug-resistant Bacteria” – 14 October 2016
“RNA Sequencing Rapidly Maps the Brain” – 19 September 2016
“Tracking Protein Dynamics in Single Living Neurons” – 6 July 2016
“Differentiated Cells Regain the Ability to Grow Like Stem Cells” – 4 April 2016
“How Animals Became Multicellular” – 16 March 2016
“Using Lasers to Weld Neurons Together” – 8 March 2016
“Building Computers Within Cells” – 24 February 2016
“Watching Fertilized Embryos Develop in Real Time” – 2 February 2016
“A Drug to Stay Young Longer” – 18 January 2016
“Eliminating CRISPR-Cas9’s Off-target Effects” – 13 January 2016
“It’s All in the Tip: A New Way to Study Membrane Receptors” – 2 December 2016
“Insect-Inspired Vision Helps These Tiny Robots Fly” – 17 June 2014
When It Comes to Echolocation, Some Bats Just Wing It” – 4 December 2014
“Wasp Bores Into Fruit With Metallic “Drill Bit”” – 28 May 2014
“World’s First Female “Penis” Found, in Cave-Dwelling Bugs” – 17 April 2014
“Washington Mudslide’s Speed Led to High Death Toll” – 27 March 2014
“Extinct Porpoise Found to Be First Mammal With Major Underbite” – 13 March 2014
“Crazy Ants Smear Acid Over Themselves to Survive Fire Ants” – 13 February 2014
“Bumblebees Can Fly Higher Than Mount Everest, Scientists Find” – 4 February 2014
“Good News for Bats? Species Bouncing Back in Europe” – 29 January 2014
“Dinosaur Fossil With Fleshy Rooster’s Comb Is First of Its Kind” – 12 December 2013
“Turkey’s New Undersea Tunnel Is Built to Resist Earthquakes” – 4 November 2013
“Left or Right Tail Wags Elicit Different Emotional Responses From Dogs” – 31 October 2013
“African Elephants Understand Human Gestures” – 10 October 2013
“New Species of Spiny Rat Found on Indonesian Island” – 24 September 2013
“Tiny Silicon Chip Uses Quantum Physics to Slow Light Down” – 14 January 2011
“Underwater robot can follow marine organisms over record distances” – 1 November 2010
“Virtual dissection table gets classroom test run” – 21 June 2011
“Women brave the needles in hopes of having children” – 15 June 2011
“Schools warn kids need shot by the fall” – 30 May 2011
“Bionic legs help paralyzed patient walk at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center” – 25 May 2011
“Bedbug reports increase in Santa Clara County” – 12 May 2011
“Virus kills crow, raising concerns about West Nile” – 30 April 2011
“Girls will make up 45 percent of teams in 2011 Tech Challenge” – 29 April 2011
“Schools brace for Whooping Cough” – 25 April 2011
“County struggles to bring down high TB rate” – 24 April 2011
“Students will get to see best of Washington D.C. after all” – 9 April 2011
“Bless you, gesundheit, salud:It’s allergy season!” – 6 April 2011
“Water is abundant, so drought is over” – 30 March 2011
Wrote a script that was played on “Loh Down on Science” radio show – Summer 2011
(The article has also appeared in several other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada after being picked up by the McClatchy-Tribune wire)
“Study Shows People in Love Feel Less Pain” – 6 January 2011
“It’s not just size that matters: how population affects climate change” – 11 November 2010
“Overachievers We Love” – August 2010
“Out of Our Element” – June 2010
“FYI: Could an Asteroid Impact Knock the Moon into the Earth?” – May 2010
“Headlines: The All-Seeing Border” – April 2010
“Megapixels: Light Touch” – April 2010
“Headlines: Fire Escape” – March 2010
“Headlines: Sweet Sensor” – March 2010
“How it Works: Paper, Revised” – March 2010
“Megapixels: Coincidence or Consequence?” – March 2010
“Megapixels: Tunnel Vision” – February 2010
“Your Guide to the Year in Science 2010: Births and Deaths” – January 2010
“Your Guide to the Year in Science 2010: Life After Death?” – January 2010
“FYI: Can microwave technology be used to make food cold?” – January 2010
“Megapixels: Mind the Gap” – January 2010
“FYI: Why don’t loud snorers wake themselves up?” – December 2009
“Autism symptoms emerge in infancy, sibling study finds” – 6 April 2010
“The Strength to Live” – July/August 2010
“The Superstarvers” – July/August 2010
“DNA Daredevils” – March/April 2010
“Robots on the Job” – January/February 2010
“A Liquid Beginning” – January/February 2010
“Interview: NASA Scientist’s Plan to Extract Moon Water Affordably Using Microwaves” – 29 October 2009
“NASA’s Messenger Flyby Captures Never-Before-Seen Images of Mercury” – 02 October 2009
“Drinking Alcohol May Make Head Injuries Less Harmful” – 22 September 2009
“Newest Lightbulb Tech Combines Advantages of Incandescent, Fluorescent, and LED” – 18 September 2009
“Fungus-Infected Violin Beats Stradivarius in Listening Test” – 17 September 2009
“A Squirt of Stem Cell Gel Heals Brain Injuries” – 4 September 2009
“Ant-Sized Microbots Travel in Swarms” – 31 August 2009
“QnAs with Daniel Herschlag” – 8 July 2026
“QnAs with E. Dale Abel” – 13 May 2026
“QnAs with Yukiko Yamashita” – 6 April 2026
“QnAs with Jane E. Parker” – 19 November 2025
“QnAs with Deborah K. Morrison” – 29 October 2025
“Profile of Chris H. Greene” – 6 August 2025
“QnAs with Blake C. Meyers” – 30 July 2025
“QnAs with Janet B. Pierrehumbert” – 9 July 2025
“QnAs with Thomas A. Henzinger” – 14 May 2025
“QnAs with Nora Newcombe” – 22 April 2025
“Profile of Mark Kirkpatrick” – 19 February 2025
“Profile of Bruce E. Tabashnik” – 2 January 2025
“Profile of Stefan W. Hell” – 30 December 2024
“Profile of Susan Goldin-Meadow” – 27 November 2024
“Profile of Shuhai Xiao” – 7 November 2024
“QnAs with Ulrich R. Christensen” – 7 August 2024
“QnAs with Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas” – 10 July 2024
“Profile of Valeria P. Molinero” – 10 June 2024
“QnAs with Miguel A. Garcia-Garibay” – 3 April 2024
“Profile of Rene Bernards” – 4 March 2024
“QnAs with Eugenia Russinova” – 31 January 2024
“Profile of Andreas J. Baumler” – 4 December 2023
“QnAs with David M. Knipe” – 13 November 2023
“QnAs with Nikolaus Grigorieff” – 25 July 2023
“Profile of Luis A. Borrero” – 25 July 2023
“Profile of Lalita Ramakrishnan” – 13 June 2023
“QnAs with Michael L. Dustin” – 18 April 2023
“Profile of David Card” – 4 April 2023
“Profile of Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado: Winner of the 2023 Vilcek Prize in biomedical science” – 28 March 2023
“Profile of Francis Nimmo” – 21 March 2023
“Profile of Yi Cui” – 7 March 2023
“QnAs with Geerat J. Vermeij” – 31 January 2023
“Profile of Krzysztof Palczewski” – 8 November 2022
“QnAs with Richard O. Hynes, Erkki Ruoslahti, and Timothy A. Springer: Winners of the 2022 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award” – 4 October 2022
“Profile of Nieng Yan” – 16 August 2022
“Profile of Paul G. Falkowski” – 2 August 2022
“QnAs with John T. Schiller” – 18 July 2022
“QnAs with David H. Raulet” – 7 June 2022
“Profile of Gisela Storz” – 3 May 2022
“QnAs with Renu Malhotra” – 25 April 2022
“Profile of Ana Maria Cuervo” – 20 April 2022
“Profile of Lynn Nadel” – 19 April 2022
“Profile of Kazuo Shinozaki” – 15 March 2022
“Profile of Jonathan L. Sessler” – 1 March 2022
“QnAs with David Van Essen” – 8 February 2022
“QnAs with Matthew V. Tirrell” – 28 December 2021
“Profile of John R. Speakman” – 3 August 2021
“Profile of Patrick Cramer” – 27 July 2021
“QnAs with Sean J. Morrison” – 22 June 2021
“QnAs with Clare M. Waterman” – 8 June 2021
“QnAs with Michael Reth” – 20 April 2021
“QnAs with Kenneth W. Kinzler” – 23 March 2021
“Profile of James H. Hurley” – 16 March 2021
“Profile of Se-Jin Lee” – 30 November 2020
“Profile of Subra Suresh” – 13 October 2020
“Profile of Edward H. Egelman” – 1 September 2020
“QnAs with Sharad Goel and Allison Koenecke” – 1 September 2020
“QnAs with Mark T. Nelson” – 25 August 2020
“QnAs with Mikhail D. Lukin” – 30 June 2020
“QnAs with Zachary B. Lippman” – 30 June 2020
“Profile of Christopher A. Walsh” – 23 June 2020
“QnAs with John Kutzbach” – 27 January 2020
“QnAs with Roger J. Davis” – 24 January 2020
“QnAs with Sheng Yang He” – 11 November 2019
“QnAs with Günter P. Wagner” – 30 September 2019
“Profile of David D. Ginty” – 18 June 2019
“QnAs with Mitchell A. Lazar” – 18 June 2019
“QnAs with Alexander Levitzki” – 11 June 2019
“QnAs with C. Y. Cyrus Chu” – 2 April 2019
“QnAs with Steven A. Kliewer” – 27 November 2018
“Profile of Julian I. Schroeder” – 15 October 2018
“Profile of Yuval Peres” – 7 September 2018
“QnAs with John E. Cronan” – 3 July 2018
“QnAs with Lia Addadi” – 2 July 2018
“QnAs with Rafael Radi” – 29 May 2018
“Profile of Steve Granick” – 22 January 2018
“Profile of Scott W. Lowe” – 16 January 2018
“QnAs with Pardis Sabeti” – 8 September 2017
“QnAs with Joe Lutkenhaus” – 8 August 2017
“Profile of Matthew O. Jackson” – 25 July 2016
“Profile of Paul Shulze-Lefert” – 14 January 2014
“Profile of Peter Novick” – 7 January 2014
“Profile of Bruce A. Beutler” – 15 July 2013
“QnAs with Detlef Weigel” – 9 July 2013
“PNAS Classic Profile: Barbara McClintock and the discovery of jumping genes” – 11 December 2012
“QnAs with Charles F. Stevens” – 11 September 2012
“QnAs with Shu Chien” – 19 June 2012
“Profile of Lee D. Ross” – 8 May 2012
“QnAs with Richard T. Durrett” – 21 February 2012
“PNAS Classic Profile: Paul Greengard: Signals underlying moods, addictions, and brain disorders” – 22 November 2011
Wrote weekly article summaries for the journal’s “In This Issue” section and tipsheet, and created and edited PNAS Science Sessions podcasts
Regular articles for Ophthalmology Journal‘s This Issue at a Glance section and occasional articles for Ophthalmic News & Education Network – 2018 – present
“Peer Profile: Carol Shields” – 15 October 2016
“Peer Profile: Felipe Medeiros” – 29 July 2016
“Research connects specific variations in RNA splicing with breast cancer causation” – 1 October 2015
“Scientists sequence genome of worm that can regrow body parts, seek stem cell insights” – 21 September 2015
“Surprised? Cholinergic neurons send brain-wide broadcasts enabling us to learn from the unexpected” – 27 August 2015
“An immune system marker for therapy-resistant prostate cancer” – 04 June 2015
“Tumor surroundings are shown to affect progression of different cancer subtypes” – 27 May 2015
“Tumor cells that mimic blood vessels could help breast cancer spread to other sites” – 8 April 2015
“Twin copies of a gene pair up in embryonic stem cells at a critical moment in their differentiation” – 3 March 2015
“Addressing Global Mental Health Issues Across Town and Around the World” – Fall 2016
“Neuromodulation for Treating Depression” – Fall 2015
“Clock Management” – Winter 2014-15
“Do snails need their slime trails to move ahead? It’s a sticky question, Stanford researchers say” – 6 April 2011
“New Stanford Nano Center provides state-of-the-art equipment for research at the smallest of scales” – 23 March 2011
“Stanford researchers find that modern humans originated in southern Africa” – 7 March 2011
“Stanford professor wins million-dollar Dan David Prize” – 3 March 2011
“Stanford researchers develop new technology for cheaper, more efficient solar cells” – 20 February 2011
“Stanford researchers study how disordered proteins spread from cell to cell, potentially spreading neurodegenerative disease” – 18 February 2011
“Stanford researchers develop wireless technology for faster, more efficient communication networks” – 14 February 2011
“The brain knows what the nose smells, but how? Stanford researchers trace the answer” – 2 February 2011
“IHV Researchers Hunt for an Infectious Cause of Some Human lung Cancers” – Winter/Spring 2010
“New Peptides Could lead to Better Anti-Cancer Therapies” – Winter/Spring 2010
“A Lassa Fever Vaccine is Safe Even in Immunocompromised Animals” – Fall 2009
“Conspiracy Beliefs Can Affect Treatment of People with HIV” – Fall 2009
“A Compelling New Mechanism for HIV Cellular Entry” – Summer 2009
“Should you put your computer to sleep?” – May/June 2009
“If people get some genes from their mom and some genes from their dad, do you have some of your own genes?” – 2 September 2009
“I’ve read that humans gained about 200cc of brain capacity some 100,000 years ago. Is this true? Also, how did human brains get to be so big?” – 11 December 2008
“Can stem cells help one with liver cancer?” – 25 September 2008
“What is a mutated gene?” – 14 August 2008
“Identification of Virulence Factors for Toxoplasmosis” – Spring 2007
“Riders Finish Second at Skidmore” – November 24, 2002
“Crews Satisfied With Fall Season Results” – November 18, 2002