On the Origin of Science Writers

How did you get your start writing about science?

My path to being the news editor at a science magazine began with two key initial conditions: I like science, and I have a short attention span.

I went to university to study science, and majored in chemistry. As my undergraduate went by, however, I grew increasingly bored as I saw the scope of what I was learning narrowing. Where at first I was studying a huge range of things—physics, biology, chemistry—later on it was largely different flavours of one. I realized that if I stayed in science, if I kept going to be a chemist, it would just get more and more focused. That wasn’t going to work for me.

Disillusioned, I started slipping in my classes, and the school set me up to meet with a guidance counselor. I told her that I still liked science, but I hated the looming specialization. She asked if I’d ever thought about science writing, and I said I’d always cherished my subscription to Discover Magazine and the Canadian Discovery Channel show Daily Planet. She suggested I look in to science writing and science journalism. On her advice I changed programs, switching from chemistry to a more general “physical sciences.”

Now I knew where I was going, but I had none of the skills to get there. I had no idea how to write. So I started volunteering at my campus newspaper, and read the copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Journalism that my dad got me. I applied to journalism schools, and was eventually accepted into Western University.

Western didn’t offer a specialized science writing program like you can find in the United States, but I did my best to twist each assignment so that I could write about science. My big goal was to work for Daily Planet, so I specialized in television journalism, and even got to spend a month writing for the show as a co-op placement. I also got permission from the school to conduct an independent study project on science journalism theory rather than take one of the offered courses. As I researched and wrote about the science of science communication, I published it all on my blog.

Fortunately, those blog posts caught the attention of the American Geophysical Union, where I had just applied for a paid science writing internship. The AGU chose me for the program, and after navigating a number of hurdles at the border, I was off to the District of Columbia for my first ever position as a science writer.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Avoid press releases. If you’re pitching a story based on one, others are too. Look to smaller journals for interesting research that isn’t getting such saturated attention.

How did you get your start writing about science?

On some level, I was always a journalist but I took the real dive during my undergraduate college years when, halfway, I switched majors from physics to journalism. Although I’d made a decision to leave a science career behind, science never left me. My mom was a biochemist and I always credit her for my insatiable curiosity for science and technology.

During the first 10 years of my journalism career, my beat centered on current affairs, conflict, and politics. But that’s the thing about journalism; being trained as a generalist gives you a unique perspective and an ability to see the big picture. I wouldn’t be where I am today as a science writer if it hadn’t been for those grueling field-reporting years where I breathlessly chased stories in Egypt and the Middle East, and landed in situations that were often challenging or outright scary. And as fascinated as I am with science, having a background in newsroom reporting and investigative journalism enabled me to switch gears with relative ease when I was head-hunted by Nature Middle East, the regional copy of Nature magazine, in 2013. It certainly made me a more critical storyteller, able to dig deep, and juggle perspectives.

Navigating a new genre was initially a little jarring—deep diving into academic papers and researching concepts that I’d never come across before—but it was worth it. From meeting renowned scientists doing impressive, cutting edge work to touring labs and rubbing shoulders with fellow science communicators at international conferences, it’s been a wild and awesome ride. The visuals and the imaginative expanse of the different science fields—from astrophysics to biology and genetics—constantly inspired me to take the story beyond text and across disciplines. I’ve been producing stories in writing, in podcast form, and even in virtual reality and gaming. Switching to science journalism also helped me forge a path to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where, as a Knight Science Journalism fellow, I experimented with immersive science storytelling using different tech tools. I still collaborate on ambitious narrative projects as a research affiliate at MIT.

This switch made me realize how the science story is part of every single aspect of our lives. It also made me a more global journalist. Although I have intimate knowledge of the high-stakes stories that shape my region, the universal aspect of science has given me the opportunity to follow stories across borders, something that I’m incredibly grateful for.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don’t get intimidated by science. Ask that "stupid" question. Remember, you’re a stand-in for a broad audience. Your job isn’t to know everything, but to find where the story is and which facts hold the most weight—then tell that to your audience in a simple way.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Ever since I was a child, I have found science fascinating. Growing up with a scientist mom, I played with lab mice and looked at weird things under the microscope for fun. I enrolled in a biomedical research program at university. In the last year of my bachelor’s, I fell in love with neuroscience. So, I started reading news and features about it, and I slowly found myself falling in love, again, with science communication.

My first endeavor in science writing was writing a blog post for Historias Cienciacionales, a science blog produced by some friends. Without much thought, I proposed to them a story about the brain and storytelling (I didn’t know what pitching was at the time).

I slowly realized I really enjoyed writing, but I only saw it as a hobby at that point. That was until a colleague convinced me to apply for a travel fellowship offered by the NASW to attend the 2015 AAAS annual meeting. The meeting was a turning point for me because I saw first-hand that science journalism is a serious job.

I continued to write as a freelancer and my stories kept getting published. Before I knew it, I was offered to write a column in a new science and technology magazine, I published my first feature story in the most famous science magazine in the country, and became a correspondent to Medscape’s Spanish edition. Along with the few and dispersed science journalists in the country, we formed the Mexican Network of Science Journalists in January of 2016.

All of this, while I was still doing experiments in the lab.

Then, I was chosen as one of the 2017 The Open Notebook early-career fellows. During this fellowship, I got to work with mentors and editors who taught me the very basic things of journalism. The TON fellowship was crucial for me: It gave me a purpose, it made me realize that I could make a living out of writing, and that there are kind people in the science writing community that want to help you find your way. But after being heavily edited, I also realized I needed some serious training. With no career-development options in Mexico, I decided to enroll in the master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz after finishing undergrad.

Grad school gave me the opportunity to intern at a local newspaper and at Knowable, and gave me the necessary tools to do print, digital, multimedia, and investigative journalism. It also helped me get important internships at Science, Quanta, and Inside Science. All of this allowed me to jumpstart my career when I came back to Mexico as a correspondent for Science, where I focus my reporting on diversity in STEM.

Through journalism, I get to share cool, impactful discoveries with a curious audience. But I also get to talk about some of the uncomfortable realities about academia and research, with the hope to make science a more welcoming and equitable career for everyone.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don’t overthink and start writing—it’s the first and most important step. Forget about your impostor syndrome, structure, impatient editors, and tight deadlines for some hours, and just type. The rest will follow. Also, reach out to other science journalists—you’ll find a generous community eager to see you thrive.

How did you get your start writing about science?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a science degree must be in want of a PhD. And I tried, but I was the world’s worst graduate student, and quit after two years when I realized I was much better at writing about science than actually doing it. I joined a cancer charity as a public information officer; on the side, in 2006, I started my own blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science. I wanted to practice writing, to convince myself it was something I actually enjoyed, and to build up a portfolio of clips to show to editors. It worked, but slowly. The blog was independent at first and few people read it, but it was eventually picked up by a series of increasingly high-profile networks—ScienceBlogs, Discover, and National Geographic. Its audience slowly grew, and I won some awards for it.

Concurrently, I started pitching freelance pieces and over time, rejections went from constant to merely frequent. The pieces got longer, from 120-word news stubs to 3,500-word features. In 2011, I quit my job and went freelance fulltime, writing a mix of news and features for a variety of publications including The New Yorker, New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, the BBC, The Scientist, Wired, and more. In 2014, I sold my first book, I Contain Multitudes, which was published a few years later. And in 2015, I was headhunted by The Atlantic to be their first staff science writer.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Protect your work and your work will protect you. Writing problems are usually structuring or reporting problems. Be kind, to others and yourself.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I've always been a writer, and I've always loved nature, especially the stranger parts. In 2011 I was looking into grad school for nonfiction writing. One school's website mentioned a science writing degree. I thought, "That's a real job you can do?!?" I immediately applied to the program, got in, and started freelancing as soon as I could. My first published story was a goofy explainer called "A Guide to Pooping in the Galapagos Islands." At first I wrote a lot about nature, especially marine biology, but over time my confidence grew and I branched out into other disciplines. Around that same time, my chronic illness worsened. I began writing about my experience and medical science as a way to understand it, to explain it, and to cope.

These days I cover biomedical research at my day job and publish essays, poems, and occasionally articles as a freelancer. I write a lot about illness and disability, and teach a workshop about writing these subjects.

My career has taken a lot of turns, even since I started grad school. I feel fortunate to have been able to cover so many wonderful subjects and to write stories and essays that resonate with readers. When I first learned about science writing, it didn't occur to me that something I wrote someday might be able to help someone. Now that's one of the biggest reasons I do it.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Follow what thrills you, and tell the stories you know need to be told. Your work can be a force for good.

How did you get your start writing about science?

From a very young age I began to hear about science, specifically about agronomy. My mother, a biologist, and my father, an economist, were both professors at the University of Chapingo, considered the largest university in Latin America specialized in agronomy. It was Chapingo that also allowed me to get to know journalism. As part of their courses open to the public, they offered a journalism workshop for students and I took it when I was 16. There I learned not only to write journalism and to talk to people, to ask questions and get to know their problems, but also to strive to understand the complexities of the problems of the field and of the university community who studies them. In a country where more than half of the population lives in poverty, and where many of these people depend on the countryside, I found it fascinating and necessary to talk about how science can be used to improve crops, soils, irrigation, or pest control techniques; how economics can improve the livelihoods of those who depend on the countryside; and how social science can contribute in understanding the way people’s culture and customs impact on and depend on their relationship with the land. Later, I joined the official newspaper of the same university as a volunteer, where I wrote, for example, on the impact of certain types of fertilizer on the tomato harvesting or the experiences of young people in rural communities when they entered university. I think that first experience inserted in me the interest to write stories of how the land feeds the human being and how the human being, with his knowledge, can enrich the land. When I entered the university, I had no doubts: I would study journalism to become a science journalist. Before finishing college, I found one of the few places in Mexico to train in science coverage: the Science Journalism Unit at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). And there I acquired basic tools: understanding how science works, reading and understanding scientific papers, structuring journalistic stories, avoiding the principle of authority, doing interviews with scientists without losing the control, verifying data, and, in general, including scientific information in science journalism. I learned what would become my permanent attempt as a science writer: to tell journalistic stories with the scientific information necessary for people to decide.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

To find your first stories, look for the university or research center nearest you to see how their presence does or does not affect the community and write about it.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I’ll always say that science writing chose me and not the other way around. Even when I majored in communications, I never considered becoming a journalist, nor did I think I had the skills to navigate my way through science. Still, I always felt curious about it, and life works in mysterious ways.

After graduating in 2015, I landed a fellowship at my university’s science museum, Universum, where science hooked me for good. I came to regret not pursuing a scientific career, mostly because, outside of the fellowship, there weren’t a lot of science-related jobs without the proper degree. Then, the fates intervened. While figuring out what to do next, I got a fortunate voicemail in my cell phone from Javier Flores, a science journalist from the national newspaper La Jornada. I met Javier when he came as a guest speaker to my science writing class at university and we kept in touch over the years. That day, he proceeded to offer me my first science writing job in the digital monthly science newsletter Aquí entre nos (Here Among Us), edited by him.

Little by little, my passion for this profession grew as I started getting more involved in it. In 2017, I joined the Mexican Network of Science Journalists, which ultimately opened up a whole new perspective for me of what was out there in terms of job opportunities, workshops, fellowships, and collaborations. My colleagues at the Network gave me the encouragement to step out of my comfort zone and start freelancing on the side for outlets like the magazine ¿Cómo ves?, The New York Times, Science, Medscape, and The Open Notebook, among others. Also, they encouraged me to apply for fellowships to attend international meetings, such as ScienceWriters, of the National Association of Science Writers.

My beginnings in science writing were a mix between being in the right place at the right time and me making the most of it. Although it’s not the ultimate path to riches, it is possible to make a decent living out of it.

I love science writing because, as opposed other careers, the path to it is quite original and diverse, as diverse as there are ways to do it. It’s an incredibly versatile job made for curious people who want to learn more and more about the world. Some of us choose the freelance path, and others may become staff reporters or combine them both, as I did a while back. It can also be joint with academics, research, the development of a blog, you name it—the possibilities are infinite.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Just do it. Find a story that you’re interested in telling and pitch it. Become a member of a science writing association and keep an eye open for fellowships. Have fun!

How did you get your start writing about science?

I started my career writing witty opinion columns for a local newspaper while I was still a chemistry undergrad. My columns eventually became exclusively about science and I was employed as a general news reporter. After a few other  unrelated jobs I was spotted making science jokes on Twitter by my current employer, and after some freelance gigs with them they took me on as a science communicator. I continue to work as a freelance science writer and a columnist for various publications in South Africa and other parts of the world and I am an ardent advocate for the decolonization of science and science writing.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Show your best self on social media. Chances are you'll meet your next big client, employer, or make a great friend!

How did you get your start writing about science?

My path to science journalism is unusual only in that it began relatively early in my life. As part of an immigrant family, I received a lot of pressure to pursue a more practical and lucrative career (as in, not journalism) so that I could "make it" in the U.S. and achieve some stability. So I entered university as an engineering student, focused on computer science. While I was waiting in line to check out some books for study at a campus library, I noticed a bright yellow book called Alternative Careers in Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower on a cart of texts for reshelving. I picked it up and started leafing through it: One of the first chapters detailed careers in science writing.

At the time I was 18 years old, and as soon as I read that chapter while standing in the library queue, I knew I’d found exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Luckily for me, the University of Virginia, where I was, had a health and science section in its newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. I remember my first assignment: My editor asked me to cover ergonomics research ongoing at the university. Writing that left a lasting impression on me about the necessity of good chair and keyboard positioning—pretty handy given how much time we journalists spend at our desks. When I transferred to Dartmouth College the next year, I joined the college’s newly launched undergraduate journal of science, where I helped edit articles about fellow students’ research. I majored in biology, but always with the purpose of becoming a science writer. My organic chemistry professor was very confused by this.

After university, I got on an airplane and headed to Berlin to see if I could make it as a science writer there: I pitched furiously and landed a few articles on WIRED.com. After a brief year-long stint as a newspaper editor in Latvia following that, I took an internship in London with a new science and innovation magazine through the Economist Group called Intelligent Life. From there I went on to work at Nature and Nature Medicine for a cumulative amount of almost 14 years (with a brief 2-year hiatus at New Scientist magazine).

Even though it’s been a while since I started out in science writing, the early lessons have stuck with me: Don’t be afraid to pitch, and write down the advice of your editors. I still take notes whenever I talk to an editor because I’m still learning how to be the science writer I want to be.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don't be too afraid to pitch and don't be too strong-headed to listen to your editors. A bit of hubris and humility go a long way in science journalism.

How did you get your start writing about science?

My dreams of going into research went awry during college, when a half-year stint as an undergraduate researcher in an immunology lab went poorly. Working under the lab hood, streaking bacterial cultures, running assays—I was terrible at all of it. And worse, I dreaded how hyper-specialized lab research was. I didn’t want to spend decades investigating a single gene or protein.

At the end of the semester, my professor gently dissuaded me from thinking of research as a long-term career, and I’m so glad she did. More importantly, she spent quite a bit of time praising the papers I produced during my time in the lab, and suggested I think about a career in science writing.

When I heard that, the bulb went off in my head. I had always loved writing (I was pursuing a minor in English literature at the time), and both of my siblings were writers as well. I’m an information junkie who was already wasting hours on the internet reading anything and everything about any subject I hadn’t already learned about—and of course that included new discoveries in science. I was a voracious reader of publications like Scientific American and Wired, and loved digging through the science section of The Washington Post (my hometown paper). I adored writers like Mary Roach, E.O. Wilson, and Oliver Sacks.

What intrigued me most, however, wasn’t merely that I could do a good job communicating science to the public. It was also the idea of doing the things sharp journalists do: seeing patterns and ideas that others don’t normally see, doing the reporting and research that can validate those ideas, and synthesizing everything together into compelling narratives thrust forward by human voices.

So I spent the latter half of college moving away from research, and toward science writing. I began taking on whatever opportunities I could find to write about science. Most of this was confined to press releases for my school, on new research and news being conducted by the scientists on campus. Some of the work was for local newspapers and zines at my college. When I graduated, I took on internships around Washington, DC, while preparing to apply for a master’s degree in journalism where there were programs in science journalism. I got accepted to New York University’s Science Health & Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP). I would say that my move to New York City (my dream city) in August 2013 was the official start of my science journalism career.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Start writing, however you can. Blog, comms / PR, newsletter ... your writing today will open up bigger and better writing opportunities tomorrow.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I was near the end of my undergrad career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was a psychology major, when I got the idea that I wanted to be a writer. I vaguely thought that maybe there was a way I could write about science, and think about science, but not actually do the science. However, I couldn’t find anyone who had ever heard of a job like that. For lack of a concrete plan or any understanding of how people find jobs, I instead stuck to the academic track, enrolling in a PhD program in social psychology at Yale University. After a couple of years there, I was restless. I sensed that a progressively more narrow academic existence wasn’t for me, but I didn’t know what was for me. Then one Tuesday, while reading The New York Times science section, I suddenly realized that the people whose writing I was reading … doing this was their job. Science writing (it seemed) was a job, and that meant it could be my job. I instantly knew that I wanted that job.

The problem was that I had no idea how to become a science writer, and neither did my friends or advisors. I tried entering “science writing” into a search engine, and lo and behold, there was a National Association of Science Writers. Phew! Not only was “science writing” a job, but it looked like there was a whole national association of these people. And on the NASW website was a list of science writers who had email. I emailed all of them, I think—maybe 20 people or so.

One person, Charles Seife (now a journalism professor at NYU), replied at length and explained some basics about the field. He also told me about the AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship program, which placed science grad students who are interested in science writing into summer internships at media outlets. I managed to land a spot in the AAAS program and was placed at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia, where I was mentored by the science reporter A.J. Hostetler. That summer, I started learning core principles of newspaper journalism: how to gather accurate information, interview scientists, and write clearly for a lay audience.

The next summer, I interned at Science News, trying to further hone my skills, including my ability to suss out newsworthy stories and to craft feature stories. After that internship, and while finishing up my dissertation, I did some sporadic freelancing, including writing a short feature for the APA Monitor on Psychology. That assignment put me on the magazine’s radar. Just as I was about to graduate, a science writer position opened up there, and I was offered the position—my first professional job in science writing.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don't believe the voice in your head that says you may not be cut out for science writing. If you're curious, committed to factual accuracy, and can tolerate not always being the most knowledgeable person on the subject at hand, you can do it.

How did you get your start writing about science?

It took me longer than it should have to realize that I didn’t belong at the bench. I was three years into a PhD with zero clue what to do next. So I contacted the only alum from my lab who hadn’t become a professor or a pharmaceutical company researcher to ask about her job. One introduction led to another. Eventually, I found a path forward when I met a science writer. She described a career where it was possible to learn about all kinds of new research. It sounded perfect, because I was constantly switching research fields.

From that point, I focused on finding writing opportunities while finishing my degree as a way of hedging my bets. My original contact helped me land a column for AWIS Magazine. I audited a science journalism course and wrote for my university’s press office. To practice writing on my own schedule, I started a blog. Before graduation, I applied to something like 50 jobs and internships. The response was mostly polite rejection, but Chemical & Engineering News took a chance and hired me. That job taught me how to write news and features, and I got to dabble in multimedia projects and audience engagement. I worked there for seven years before becoming a freelancer and working with publications including Science News, Scientific American, and Forbes.

I’ve occasionally taken another staff job, but the ability to set my own project mix keeps luring me back to freelance life. Not that I have this career thing all figured out. I most assuredly do not. But now I know to reach out to my network whenever I’m itching to make a change.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Try writing on for size. Pick the platform you scroll through for fun and make it your sandbox. Start today.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Ever since I can remember, I've always been interested in both science and writing, but it took me a long time to realize I could find a career that combined both. As I was finishing up my undergraduate biology degree, I actually applied to both PhD programs in microbiology and MFA programs in creative writing because I thought I had to choose one or the other. I ended up choosing a PhD because I wasn't quite done with science yet, but the more time I spent doing research the more I missed writing.

I started writing on the side as much as I could, from writing for a student science magazine to contributing to the "Ask a Geneticist" column of a local science museum and taking a course in environmental journalism. Shortly before defending my thesis, I happened to attend a talk about science writing, and realized that's what I wanted to pursue as a career. I started reaching out to other science writers to find out how they got their start in the field, and found that the vast majority of them were extremely generous with their time and advice. These contacts also enabled me to find some freelance gigs after my PhD, and I simultaneously applied to every science writing internship I could find.

I ended up getting an internship with Popular Science and Science Illustrated magazines, which provided a great introduction to science and technology writing for magazines. After the internship, I decided I wanted more training in other aspects of the field, and attended the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program. That provided a great crash course in different facets of science journalism, as well as the opportunity to get articles published in various national outlets.

After graduating, I moved to Washington, DC, and started an internship at Science News magazine. Right after the internship, I got a job as a science writer at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with the added benefit of it sponsoring my work visa. After I got my green card a few years later, I started freelancing, and I continue to enjoy constantly learning about new scientific discoveries and getting to write about them.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Draw from your unique experiences, perspectives and interests to come up with lots of original story ideas, which in turn will make your pitches stand out.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I spent four years and three summers in a lab as a biochemistry major, aiming straight for PhD school. Our key task was to build proteins, which is a remarkable, delicate, intricate thing to be able to do outside a living cell. But I had a restless curiosity. In my senior year I veered left, took one journalism class, and went to MIT's science writing graduate program to give reporting a shot. The course was terribly hard, like growing an extra limb. But I asked for help at the writing center, turned up annoyingly often to office hours, and things worked out.

One of my first internships was at the science/tech desk at MSNBC.com (now NBCNews.com), blogging for a massive national audience. Publishing was terrifying, but also addictive, like oxygen. I was hooked.

I graduated in 2010, a little after the last downturn, and the market was rough. My first editors ran technology or business desks, so I had to be creative about pitching science stories when I could. I went to any meeting I could get to—NASW’s annual conference, AAAS, the local meetups where I lived. Like so many of us in those years, I made friends and mentors on Twitter. Parts of this landscape eventually began to feel familiar.

I was fortunate early on to be able to move every few months, chasing internships or other gigs—Boston, Seattle, New York City, and now Washington, DC, have all been home. But a lot of doors were closed to me because as a foreign journalist any potential employer needed to sponsor a visa so I could work for them. Many editors didn’t know how this worked; many companies in media just didn’t do it at all.

My favorite past jobs have defined who I am as a reporter, but I feel like I crash-landed into them. I lucked into a job at a local newspaper when it was trialling a technology blog—that stint at the Boston Globe still guides the way I think about my responsibility to readers. My job at the BuzzFeed News science desk didn’t even exist when I started out in 2010, but it taught me so much about journalism and the Internet.

It seems change is the one constant in this business. That and how much you can learn every day, from your sources, from the editors and reporters you work with. I feel truly lucky to get to do this every day.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Keep pitching. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I was in graduate school, working toward a PhD in genetics, and had realized early on that an academic career was not a good fit. I started thinking about science writing—what a fun career! You get to write about cool science without having to actually do science?—and I got in touch with Robert Irion, who was the director of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program at the time. Rob offered some very practical advice: Try writing about science before you decide this is the career for you. Because you could hate it. So, I did a semester-long internship with one of the news offices on campus, wrote a few not-extremely-good stories, and decided to apply to the UCSC program—because even though I was quite inexperienced and rough around the edges, that internship had showed me the way forward.

After I defended my PhD, I said goodbye to lab work and headed for the redwoods, where I spent a year unlearning how to write like a scientist and learning all sorts of practical skills instead. For me, UCSC was essential—I knew basically nothing about news writing, interviewing, constructing features, or pitching. The program dropped me into a newspaper internship before classes even began, and I loved news reporting from the very first terrifying day on the job, when I had to write stories about the upcoming weekend weather and an unfortunate accident north of town. Later, the program helped me get through the door of several prestigious publications, and I was really fortunate to land a staff job at Science News almost right after graduation. Since then, I’ve worked with many publications and am now a contributing writer at National Geographic.

Not everyone needs a PhD or graduate program to be a science journalist. There are other ways in—many, many of them!—but I definitely needed that level of instruction and guidance. I often wish I could do the SciComm program over again but they said they won’t let me. Boo.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Be brave! Breaking into a new field is, by definition, stepping outside your comfort zone and it won't always be easy or fun. (But it's often worth it.)

How did you get your start writing about science?

I was a bartender, with one novel obscurely published, who deeply loved insects and trout and wanted to write nonfiction.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don't try to be a professional writer unless you *have* to be a writer. Thinking it might be a nice way to combine science & humanities is not enough.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I started working in radio in 1998, less than a decade after communism collapsed, and my country, Romania, opened its borders to the West. Back then, journalism was the most amazing job someone could have—after years of censorship, the media was finally free, and we could publicly speak our mind. Doing that was electrifying.

I was 13 in 1998. Being a straight-A student in school, I got the opportunity to work for an independent radio station that just opened an office in my hometown of Reghin, Transylvania. The station was looking for secondary school students to contribute to its weekly show for children.

I said I wanted to do a 3-minute segment on technology, covering cutting-edge things such as CD-ROMs, the Internet, or Windows 98. I had a little bit of coding experience (I learned BASIC at the Children’s Palace, a sort of Girl Scouts Club), so everyone thought I knew what I would be doing.

Since independent media was an elusive concept in Romania and across the former Eastern Bloc, nobody knew how to do radio. There were few journalism books, so everyone was playing by ear, learning by doing and from each other, trying to figure out things such as story structure or how to talk to listeners on air.

Yet, being live and trying to inspire kids my age to learn more about science and technology was something I saw myself doing my whole life—which is what happened.

My life has always been at the intersection of journalism, science, and technology. I got my B.Sc. in math and computer science while working as a full-time news editor, becoming the first in my family to graduate from university. And then, I received a master’s degree in communications, further merging the two fields I’m most passionate about.

I only became a freelancer in 2014, when I started to write science and technology pieces for international publications. Just like in 1998, I write about cutting-edge tech, and I know that I have so much to learn.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don't be a lone wolf, learn from the pack. Build a community around you.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Since I was 8 years old, I showed a passion for wildlife and nature. I would spend hours reading entire animal encyclopedias, watching documentaries at the Discovery Channel and National Geographic, and walking through streams and woods on my family’s property in the countryside. My mom used to bug me about climbing trees to watch birds.

I thought of becoming a veterinarian, but then, I chose law school instead; I had the idea of becoming wildlife’s lawyer.

So, I originally started off as a lawyer, specializing in environmental law, working with conservation organizations to help communities protect their biodiversity. I acquired a master's in climate change and did postgraduate studies in conservation and management of natural areas, and environmental law.

Soon after I started in the conservation sector, I was invited to write for a magazine about ecology in my country. And that was my origin story in science writing.

Even as I would continue working in conservation for 5 years, I was also sharing my free time writing for media outlets. So, the change from being an environmental lawyer to becoming a full-time journalist was a short jump in my career.

Something that helped me connect the dots was a postgraduate study I did in creative writing and literature, which made me take advantage of my former career in conservation in order to sharpen my skills in science writing.

And, in 2016, I launched Red Ambiental de Información (RAI) Bolivia, a nonprofit news platform that focuses on environmental conservation and science throughout Bolivia and Latin America. Our project is committed to giving voice to biodiversity and indigenous populations. The initiative is sponsored by the Blue Foresta Foundation, a Bolivian non-profit organization I also founded that same year.

Besides our project, I have also contributed as a freelance to different outlets, such as National Geographic, Mongabay, Mongabay Latam, and O Eco, among various magazines from Bolivia.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Invest time in acquiring knowledge in the specific field of science you have interest in. This will improve your comprehension and find different angles for stories and topics.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I tried everything I could think of to break in. I studied physics in college, and wrote and edited for the student newspaper. My junior year, I took a winter/spring semester off to intern for Discover magazine in New York. Taking the semester off was impulsive, partially bankrolled by my parents, and the most magical thing.

Right after school, I was extremely unable to get another internship at a news outlet. Summer is a very competitive time to intern especially if you don't have j-school connections. I moved to Idaho for the summer and interned at a nuclear energy lab doing PR work. Often I would go to a Starbucks after work and do freelance fact checking and write pitches and work on a cherished magazine assignment or two. I lived with a family friend for free, built up my savings account, and went camping every weekend. Between that and other savings from a job at school, I had enough runway to live for a few months, even if I didn't make any money, so I started freelancing.

In the fall I stayed on my parents health insurance, and moved into an apartment in Philly. Philly is where I'm from, but it's also a place where you can get an affordable apartment, and still make it into New York for the day for a meeting if you really need to. That's probably not important anymore, but it turned out to be then, because I started fact checking part time for Popular Science and they wanted me to be in the office sometimes. (It was 2013, I think I was their first semi-remote fact-checker, which is wild).

I did a lot of fact checking, and a lot of pitching editors I fact checked for, and a lot of telling everyone who seemed relevant to the situation that I fact checked, and had a physics degree, and wanted to write more. I got most of my big clients at conferences, going up to people and introducing myself and giving them my business card. My income goal, which if I remember correctly I approximately hit, was $36,000 that year. A family member asked me when I was going to figure out what I was doing for work, and I was like: This. I am doing it.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Network!!!!!!

How did you get your start writing about science?

I started in the fall of 1986 covering town government, cops, and the fishing industry on Cape Cod. Health and science were the last two fields I would have expected to cover. Science confused and intimidated me. Health—especially surgeries—made me queasy. I thought scientists were boring, then I read James Gleick's Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. Boy was I wrong. They were fascinating.

A second pivotal moment was writing about a blue whale that was dragged ashore in Rhode Island by a tanker. I got sent to write a story about scientists stripping the flesh from it (Melville got it right: "It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment."). I got to the landfill in New Bedford and discovered that scientists from up and down the East Coast had driven hundreds of miles to collect pieces of the whale (a researcher at Tufts got the eardrum, one at Cedars-Sinai in New York got the larynx, etc.) I thought that was damned interesting so I set out to write about the scientific legacy of a single blue whale. Along the way, I learned even the most complex science can be explained. Every scientist has a line they save for Thanksgiving when Cousin Freddie asks what they do.

The third key moment for me occurred when chronic wasting disease, the deer equivalent of mad cow, came to Wisconsin, where deer hunting is virtually a religion. I got assigned to work with a far more experienced science writer, John Fauber. He taught me how to read scientific and medical papers. Early on it felt like half the words in each sentence were foreign to me. So I started collecting science dictionaries, and reading the best science writers (Fauber, Gleick, Natalie Angier, John Noble Wilford, Robert Lee Hotz, Paul Salopek, Amy Harmon, Amy Dockser Marcus, David Quammen, etc.).

One of the best and most important experiences of my career was following first-year medical students through gross anatomy, dissection of a human cadaver. Seeing what nerves look like, holding a human heart, dissecting the brain—it was amazing. The conversations I had with the medical students ranged far and wide—life, death, why we're put here, where we go afterwards. They were some of the best conversations I've ever had.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Don't be intimidated, be curious. Fact check with scientists; gain their trust. Read everything: newspapers, magazines, fiction, plays, poetry. Read Hersey's "Hiroshima." Write about everything: math, physics, DNA, stem cells, plague. Talk to trailblazers. Learn every day.

How did you get your start writing about science?

It all started with a blog where I wrote about urban wildlife habitat design. My degree is in landscape architecture, but when I graduated in 2006 firms were laying off people because of the recession. So I started writing articles on my own website and began brainstorming book ideas. Wanting to get serious about writing, I earned a certificate in nonfiction writing from the University of Washington and began networking with other writers, attending workshops and conferences. Thanks to networking I got my first local freelance assignments and then a book deal when I was quoted as an expert on urban nature in The Seattle Times and mentioned I was working on a book.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

READ for inspiration and analyze to learn the craft.
WRITE as much as possible and publish anywhere you can.
NETWORK everywhere possible.

How did you get your start writing about science?

When I was in my second year of graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I attended the keynote talk of the university's Science Writer in Residence program. It had never before occurred to me that people were paid to write about science and it was an epiphany for me to realize I could pursue it as a career. The following semester, my program offered a brand new class, Communicating Controversial Topics in Science, taught by the science and environment reporter at the local newspaper. I took the class and gained a foundation in news writing. I subsequently learned about and applied for the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship. I was lucky to be chosen for the fellowship in 2011 and spent my summer writing for the Chicago Tribune. From the minute I walked into the newsroom I knew I had made the right career move. I earned a terminal master's degree from my PhD program and became a newspaper reporter within months of completing the fellowship, at the state paper in Delaware (The News Journal). I am now director of research communications at UW–Madison, where I write about science and help manage a team of writers covering the research landscape of the university. I also freelance and have been The Open Notebook's engagement editor since May 2019.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Want a career in science writing? Read, write, repeat. Check out fellowship opportunities. Join @ScienceWriters.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I got my start by chance. After interning at Bloomberg, I was hired on full time and needed to find a permanent home. There was an opening on the health team, and they told me I could join if I'd cover biotech. I said, "Sure, I'll do that. What's biotech?" It turned out that covering startup drug companies an ideal beat for me. I got to write about the cutting edge of science, including new developments in gene therapy, gene editing, personalized cancer vaccines, and immunotherapies, many powered by recent breakthroughs in sequencing technology. I learned it all on the fly, which was overwhelming at times, but I loved it and had some kind colleagues who helped me learn the field. In 2014 I got my first experience covering infectious diseases when the Ebola outbreak spread in West Africa. I wrote about the race to develop therapeutics and flew to Dallas to cover the treatment of the first American patient.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Keep asking questions. If you don't get study jargon, ask the author to explain until you get it. The best stories come from your genuine curiosity.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Toward the end of my first year in graduate school, I was pretty miserable. It was the summer of 2001, and I was in an ecology PhD program at a very fancy university. I didn’t feel like I had a home in the lab I’d originally been accepted into, and I’d tried out some other labs, but none of them felt right, either. I was complaining to a friend one day at lunchtime (complaining to friends was something I did a lot in this era) and said, “All I really want to do is be a science reporter at NPR.” And she said “Then do that!”

Whoa. It hadn’t occurred to me that this was an actual career path. I signed up for an intro journalism class and discovered that, like science, I was good at it, but, unlike science, I enjoyed it. Less than a year later, I was a AAAS Mass Media Fellow at NPR. From there I went to the UC Santa Cruz science writing program, which led to a summer internship at U.S. News & World Report, which eventually turned into a job.

Every now and then I run into that grad school friend at a conference and thank her again for pointing out the obvious.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Find someone who will let you write for them and give you feedback.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I see myself as a journalist first and a science writer second because I began my career after studying engineering at university as a general newshound, covering crime, politics, and local news. I was recruited by ITN as a trainee broadcast journalist, working as a producer and reporter. I had to doorstep politicians early in the mornings to ask them about the big scandals that they were caught up in, with the hope of getting a comment on camera. I had to write scripts for presenters, produce segments for the national news, and did stints as an overnight reporter. I would encourage all young science reporters to try their hands at other beats if they can, because this sharpens your journalistic skills, gets you familiar with media law, and helps you recognise the elements of a solid story. Science is as much ridden with ego, corruption, abuse, scandal, and funding pressure as any other human endeavour. The key to good science reporting is to be able to spot these often hidden human aspects, as well as communicating the research itself.

I went on to work at the BBC, where the biggest report I worked on was a six-month investigation into bogus universities. We helped an overseas student who had been conned into paying for a fake degree course in Britain get his money back. That experience taught me to see every potentially big story as a detective might, because you have to slowly piece together each aspect, follow every lead, get every perspective, until you have an airtight case. You need to back up each word with irrefutable evidence. Hearsay, rumours, and guilt by association are not enough.

After that, I left broadcasting to focus on science writing full-time. My first book was a travelogue through Indian science, looking at how the nation was pushing to become a technological superpower. My work since then has also tended to investigate the underbelly of science: how nations, institutions, and individual researchers are affected by the pressures of politics and bias, even as they try to maintain the illusion of being objective. In my two most recent books, looking at sexism and racism in science, I’ve tried to bring my investigative experience to bear. I research far more than I end up writing, and that means I always have some stories left in my pocket. There’s always something on the back burner.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Remember who you work for. It’s not scientists, it’s the public.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I decided around 2009 that I wanted to be a science journalist. I had just graduated college and was working full-time as a teaching assistant in a fruit fly lab at UCLA. As a staff member, I got discounts on UCLA Extension classes, so I took an introduction to journalism course. I also used UCLA’s Career Center to find an internship—a remote, unpaid position, writing one story a week, for a blog covering the latest research on a rare cancer. I was fortunate I had a 9-to-5 job that paid well and came with good benefits, and privileged in having neither family obligations nor student loans (my parents paid for my undergraduate degree). All that made it possible for me to do my class and internship work in the evenings and weekends.

After the class and internship, I was pretty sure this was the career route I wanted. I decided to apply for a master’s program. I can’t say my reasons were the best; I was too scared to go out there and get a journalism job. But NYU’s SHERP program turned out to be great for me. It taught me skills that would have been a lot more painful to learn on the job and gave me connections I couldn’t have dreamed of in 2009. Plus, without undergrad loans and with the savings I had from three years working post-college, the NYU loans were manageable.

I landed a full-time staff writer position at LiveScience after graduating. I’ve also spent some time freelancing. I never endured a layoff until 2019, and was fortunate to find a place at The Chronicle of Higher Education quickly. It meant not covering science directly anymore, but I love the new work and anyway, academia as a whole is not so different from the science enterprise specifically. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and I found my experience covering health to be incredibly, and sadly, essential.

You never know where science journalism will take you, but it will always help you to help readers navigate the modern world.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Trying break in after the Great Recession, many told me: Don’t bother. I say try but be kind to yourself if it doesn’t work out as imagined.

How did you get your start writing about science?

I didn't set out to become a science writer, and I’m still not sure the title fits snugly—I think of myself more as a writer interested in the intersection of science, culture, and politics. But I have always been a person who writes. I wrote (mediocre) fiction in college, and after graduating I worked at a digital film production studio, where my paycheck subsidized an internship at the feminist publication Bitch Magazine. I got that internship by sliding a paper resume under their office door, and when a kind editor called to tell me there were no jobs, I suggested an internship, and when she said they didn’t have any, I suggested they could make one. That internship taught me how magazines work and helped me publish my first piece, a bit of feminist cultural criticism about tech and language. Around the same time, I was doing piecemeal freelance work for a city website that no longer exists. I applied online and I’m pretty sure the bar was low. That gig taught me how to do cold call reporting, write within a word count, and file pieces on time. Then I moved to Ecuador and taught English for two years while writing things I never tried to publish and that taught me about writing. Two years later, I moved back to New York to attend Columbia University’s nonfiction MFA program.

I went to grad school in part because I wanted to write about a family member who had sustained a brain injury. I didn't know anything about the brain or brain injuries, so I decided I would real quick learn neuroscience while getting my MFA. I began with an undergrad neuro course, sitting in the back row of a room full of bright-eyed college freshman. I read voraciously. I interviewed scientists and went to conferences. I joined one group of scientists for “lab drinks” every Thursday so I could hear about what they didn’t know, the sorts of questions and speculations that got them excited over a beer. I had a friend sneak me into a medical dissection lab in the middle of the night so I could hold a human brain. In retrospect, things escalated quickly. I started working as the book review editor at The Believer, and through industry contacts I was able to publish a few pieces about neuroscience, then editors started asking me to write on other science-related subjects. So I did. And I was hooked.

Soon after graduate school, I turned toward writing about the climate crisis. This is a science you can’t unsee, and writing about the most complex threat to human civilization on this planet still feels compelling, enraging, and urgent.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Write about the questions/discoveries/histories you find most compelling. Your fascination will enliven the writing and can help spark an editor's interest.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a scientist. I got the idea from a television show called 3-2-1 Contact. In it, there was an African American girl solving problems, and when I saw her, I saw my reflection. Years later, however, my dream of becoming a scientist was nearly derailed by weed-out undergraduate science courses. After I graduated, I pledged to make others’ journeys in science smoother than my own. My career in science communication springs from that old wish.

My introduction to science writing began in graduate school, after my research program temporarily stalled. On a lark, I applied for the AAAS Mass Media fellowship and was assigned to work at Time magazine in Washington, DC. On my first day, I wrote about how Olympic swimwear used sharkskin technology. I was smitten. I not only gained an appreciation for making science understandable, but also felt appreciated. This pivotal experience shaped my remaining days in graduate school and thereafter.

After I received my doctorate in materials science, I worked at Bell Labs and later as an associate professor at Yale, keeping my passion for science communication aglow with numerous science outreach activities. At Yale, I created a science lecture series for kids called "Science Saturdays." This program was special to me because I had a vehicle to bring science to the public that could fit into my grueling academic schedule. I looked forward to a long career of doing both. But that all came to a halt when my position at Yale ended. It was this moment that forced me to make an important decision: Find another faculty job or try something new. I decided to leap into science communication.

I began a new life as a science evangelist, finding my way as opportunities presented themselves. First, I created science videos. Then, I gave a TED Talk. Next, I wrote books (Save Our Science and Newton’s Football). My life began to include giving talks, making TV appearances, and writing articles. My most recent book, The Alchemy of Us (from The MIT Press), combines storytelling with science—a merger of my two worlds. It is my best work yet, and admittedly, it took some time to get to this point. But I can honestly say that all my experiences have made me a better—and more empathetic—science writer. My hope is that I will continue to find more ways to make science accessible to the general public, and provide reflections for others in science, just like 3-2-1 Contact did for me.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Want to do #scicomm? Sign up for the @AAASMassMedia fellowship. Ten weeks takes you from zero to hero. It was one of my best career moves. #diversity

How did you get your start writing about science?

My origin story is a testimony that our seemingly unshakable beliefs can be shaken to the core. I was born into an academic family. I wanted to be a professor who, like my parents, advances knowledge and teaches students. An academia career was the only thing that mattered. It was my destiny, or so I thought.

When I started to have doubts during my PhD, and when those doubts intensified during my postdocs, I was utterly and totally lost. It was my first mid-life crisis. I was in denial initially. I tried to convince myself it was just a phase. My parents tried to convince me that my research was important and meaningful. But I couldn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. My heart was not in it.

I knew I couldn’t go on. But I had no idea what else I could or would like to do. I had never thought of any other career alternatives. Then one day, I came across a story of a prisoner-turned prison correspondent and my life was changed forever.

A habitual thief, Eric Allison had spent most of his life behind bars. He had not worked for 40 years and suddenly, at the age of 60, started a career as The Guardian’s first prison correspondent. Over the years and during his countless trips in and out of detention, Allison had become an activist advocating for prison conditions and campaigning for issues on racism and abuse in prison. After writing endless petitions and campaign leaflets, he realised that he got a similar buzz from writing as he did from stealing. I almost cried out: “That’s me! That’s exactly how I feel!” Well, not the buzz from stealing, of course. But the buzz from writing and the astonishing things one can do with words.

That was the beginning of my love affair with writing. I did an evening class on freelance journalism. I shadowed top journalists at The Guardian and The Times. I read all the major publications intensely for six months. I volunteered writing for BioMedNet and the Science Museum in London—before I sold my first stories to The Economist, Irish Times, and Nature. I did all these in evenings and at weekends for 3 years while I was a postdoc at King’s College London and then an associate editor at Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

It soon became clear that writing was a calling I could not resist and that I needed the freedom to explore my interest and potential as a writer. So I quit the editor job and became a full-time freelancer. I soon went back to Beijing, my hometown, to write about Chinese science. I’ve never looked back.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Sometimes it takes a leap of faith to ignore that little voice in me that constantly torments me with the question “what if I’m not cut out for it?”

How did you get your start writing about science?

It all started when I ran away to sea.

I was fresh out of college with a degree in technical theater and, instead of pursuing the lighting design career I had laid out for myself, I snagged a deckhand job on a tall ship. I tell people this was because I graduated into the Great Recession and job hunting was depressing. But if I’m being honest, becoming a professional sailor sounded cooler.

There were a million things to learn—carpentry, rigging, history, science, songs, and stories—and a constant rotation of new people to share it all with. It took three years of hauling lines, tarring rigs, and pronouncing words like “forecastle” with as many apostrophes as possible for the learning curve to flatten out, and for me to feel like I was ready for something new.

I fumbled through a series of jobs, trying to figure out what had been so satisfying about those first few years of sailing. I picked up carpentry and electrician work at local theaters (maybe I love using tools and pulling on ropes?); I taught after-school science classes (maybe I love working with kids?); I managed a sailing and windsurfing program (maybe I just love boats?).

Then I got a job as an educator at the New England Aquarium. Once again, I had that invigorating feeling of being delightfully out of my depth. I was surrounded by brilliant people excited to share their knowledge with me. That’s what I had been looking for.

In addition to filling my brain with weird fish knowledge, the aquarium taught me how to build facts into stories that people would actually listen to and, hopefully, remember. But it never occurred to me to try to transfer these skills to writing until one of the women I was hired alongside, Erin Ross (check out her work at Oregon Public Broadcasting), mentioned that she was applying to science journalism graduate programs.

Honestly, I wasn’t sold at first. I’d never been a writer, and I’d never been a scientist. But I did like telling stories, and I loved diving headfirst into learning new things. This career promised an endless supply of both.

True to form, though, I gave boats one last shot. I quit the aquarium and took a job captaining a tour boat for two seasons while I read every science-oriented article, essay, and book I could find. The year I got into MIT’s graduate program in science writing was also the year I put a hole in the boat I was captaining. It was a relatively small hole, but switching to science writing was definitely the right call.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Get comfortable asking questions, even if they seem simple. No one expects you to know everything!

How did you get your start writing about science?

I didn’t start my career intending to write about science, but I’m delighted to have wound up here.

Growing up, I just wanted to be a journalist, period—to read, write, learn, and somehow get paid. My entry into the industry was as traditional as it gets. I was a reporter and editor at my college paper, and interned at dailies all over the country (which, sadly, is an ever-dwindling option). Whatever got thrown my way, I wrote about it: elections, tuition debates, protests, concerts, zoning disputes, zoo animals.

One of my stops after college was the San Francisco Chronicle, where I did a reporting fellowship and mostly covered City Hall. When it came to an end, I wasn’t sure what my next move would be, though I did want a break from politics. In an absurdly lucky turn of events, a spot as a health reporter opened up, and my editors believed in me enough to give me that chance.

I can’t say that I came in with years of lab work or secret ambitions to be a doctor. I’d majored in comparative literature, and spent that time reading widely—from different nations, cultures, time periods. But all of it, along with my hands-on news experience, was useful. I learned how to find and tell stories about any subject, to recognize big themes in small details, and to be unafraid of jargon and complexity.

So I approached the health beat like any other: a foreign but fun challenge. To my surprise, it was a good fit right away. Talking to medical experts about their discoveries, and to patients about how those findings were changing their lives, felt deeply meaningful.

From there, I joined BuzzFeed News in 2015 and expanded my focus to include science. It’s a big umbrella, and I’ve gotten to chase my curiosity wherever it leads: from health-tech startups and biohackers, through vaping and food, to psychology and pharmaceuticals.

My favorite stories, though, explore themes that were on my mind long before I was on the science beat, like conflict, money, power, and accountability. How does industry funding influence research? Why does academic misconduct happen? And during a global pandemic, who suffers and who profits? On my best days, I’m digging into questions like these and sharing the answers with the rest of the world.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Talent and results are overrated. Focus on the work: Always be reporting, reading, thinking. Surround yourself with smart people. Take risks. Be patient!

How did you get your start writing about science?

I remember the very moment I knew I had to be a science writer. I was a 22-year-old doctoral student, wearing a stained white lab coat and queuing to use the microwave oven at the Biochemical Research Institute of Buenos Aires. Close to me, a researcher was saying she had decided on following the science communication path after her PhD. Later, in the lunchtime lecture, everyone including the Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Luis Federico Leloir (our Director) was listening the scientific presentation. But my thoughts were far from there.

Less than two years from that moment, I crossed the ocean, literally and metaphorically.
1989, Barcelona. My new life goal was to merge my love for science with the one for words, even with no formal preparation for the task. For a few pesetas, I bought a popular science magazine just to get the editor's name and telephone. A silly introduction, “I am an Argentine scientist wanting to write about science… ” led to a straight answer: “Come and bring a proposal.” Email was not a thing yet. A complaint in that issue's readers' section inspired me to write on the substitution of animal testing. My first printed piece. Soon I started as free-lance writer in the science section of La Vanguardia newspaper. My first article was based in a scientific research published in a peer review journal. My successful pitch to the all-male editorial team was: “How does father age impact kids’ intelligence?”

Since then I have been paying my bills with science journalism. My work was published in different languages, but science is the common theme. Science in daily life, taking us further, protecting us, solving problems, making us think or just for curiosity. It is relaxing to deepen on just one area, even if it is huge, and I focused on health. Still, health is becoming a broader concept, now includes even planetary health.
In my fifties, an editor invited me to bring fresh airs to the Penguin Random House Argentina catalogue writing science fiction. My quick answer was NO, with capital letters. Eventually, my “maybe” arrived. It was my second start. To be a novelist is a challenge, more as I decided that my science-based thriller would have research and imagination in equal doses. That is how I came up with a dangerous flu-like virus that emerged in Asia and went by almost unnoticed in a fully monitored but unprepared world. Biovigilados (Biomonitored) reached the bookstores two years before SARS-CoV-2 closed them.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Science writing routes goes in different directions. Read as much as you can, think out of the box, and then follow as many lanes as you like.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Just a few months before I was set to graduate in December 2014 with my bachelor’s degree in mathematics and statistics, one of my professors shared an announcement that the American Mathematical Society would be sponsoring a 2015 AAAS Mass Media Fellow.

I hadn’t heard of the fellowship program before and I was intrigued. The program sounded like the perfect fit for me, so I applied. I had always dreamt of writing for a living but felt unsure about how to make it work. During my whirlwind college experience, which included transferring schools twice and changing my major midway through, I realized that I had broad interests in math and science. However, I felt increasingly burned out and unsure about whether graduate school would be the right fit for me. Instead of feeling driven to narrow my interests down to a particular research area, I was hungry to continue exploring the wonders that different STEM fields offered.

My fellowship at The Oregonian changed my life. It didn’t take long for me to realize that science writing was the career that I had been searching for. However, when the fellowship ended, I still found it challenging to figure out what next steps to take. I applied for other internships and considered going to graduate school for science journalism. I worked part-time in a library while freelancing for nearly any publication that was willing to give me the opportunity until I had enough work to write full-time. I wrote math and science stories when I could, but also wrote about other subjects as needed.

I owe much of my start to people in my network who mentored me, offered me opportunities to write for them or connected me with other journalists and editors. I also think that my openness has been critical to my success. When I was starting out, I tried to never turn down an opportunity to write for a client unless there was a compelling reason to do so (and sometimes even then, I would still pursue the opportunity). I started trying to find opportunities in rejection. For instance, if I applied for an internship and wasn’t chosen for it, I asked the editor who sent the rejection if I could pitch them instead. If an editor said they weren’t taking on new freelancers at one point, I asked if I could check again in a month or two. I have also always strived to remain open throughout the editing process, in order to learn and grow, as well as to develop strong working relationships with editors.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

Identify and capitalize on your strengths. Embrace editors’ feedback. Be open to new subjects and opportunities. Don’t let criticism get you down.

How did you get your start writing about science?

Another Friday morning, another bone seminar. Every week, our far-flung labs would gather for a lecture aimed to unite us in the world of skeletal research. The problem was, I wanted out. I’d already started taking evening journalism classes, but didn’t know what to do next.

Usually on these Friday mornings, I sat in the back, pen in hand, notebook on my lap, waiting for the lights to go down, my mind already divided in half. From the outside, I looked dedicated enough to take notes. In reality, only a small part of my brain paid enough attention to the lecture, in case I had to comment on it later. The rest of me wrote. I wrote bits of essays, and drafts of homework assignments from my classes.

On this Friday, I actually looked forward to the lecture. We had a guest speaker—Millie Hughes-Fulford, an astronaut and a bone specialist, who flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first such mission dedicated solely to biology. By the end of the seminar, I knew with certainty that every hour in the lab was one hour too long—that I would rather write about science and the adventures of scientists, than decode the lives of osteoblasts and osteoclasts.

Later that morning, when Dr. Fulford visited the lab, I took a gulp and told her that I was transitioning into journalism. When the time came, could I interview her about her work? She graciously said yes. I doubled down on selling the stories I’d written in my journalism classes. And then I heard about a job opening for a science writer in the university’s media office. I applied. After four hours of interviews, I could tell that they were seriously considering me, and I thought, if they think I can do this, then I can freelance. I also knew that in three months, a bone meeting I’d attended as a scientist was coming to St. Louis. I applied for press credentials, and started selling stories ahead of the conference. By the time the conference opened, I was out of the lab and in the press room as a freelancer.

And I did interview Dr. Fulford for my first big feature: a story about what happens to our bones during space travel, for the late, great web magazine HMSBeagle. I called it “Heavenly Bodies.”

After the story was published, Dr. Fulford sent me a thank-you note, written on a card holding an image of Earth that she’d taken during her mission. I still have it.

My regret is not in leaving the lab, only in staying far too long.

My advice for people breaking into science writing:

My single best advice for early science writers comes from the character Mathesar in the movie Galaxy Quest: “Never give up never surrender.”