I’m a freelance journalist based in Toronto. Take a look around and you’ll find articles about science, the environment and medicine–as well as stories about world-champion Scrabble players, the only biologist employed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the elusive American eel. Many of my stories have covered climate science, the Arctic and Canadian science policy and funding. I am the founding editor of Arctic Deeply, a position I held until the end of 2016.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Most of the time, I write news and features about science, medicine and the environment. But sometimes I dabble in other fields. I have also edited features and reports, done research for television series, produced radio stories and worked on digital educational projects. I was deputy editor for the website of The Science Writers’ Handbook (and contributor) and I co-founded Bracing for Impact, a crowdfunded climate change reporting project, with five other science journalists in 2014.

My writing has appeared in a number of magazines and newspapers, and online, including National Geographic, The Atlantic, Nature, New Scientist, Discover, Wired, NOVA, Canadian Geographic, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and the Montreal Gazette. I have also written about science for children for YES Magazine and Science News for Students. When I lived in Montreal, I contributed to Free Radicals, a weekly radio program broadcast on CKUT. If I’m in the field, I take photographs for my stories. My photos have been published in PLoS, The Gazette and Nature. 

In addition to all this, I served on the board of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association from 2007 to 2012 and was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Science Media Centre of Canada. I am an active board member for Science Borealis. I have mentored students in science writing at McGill University and I deliver talks on careers in science writing and on better science communication.

How did I get here? I earned a Master’s degree in Biology from McGill University studying the renal and bone phenotypes of the NPT2 knockout mouse. During my undergrad, I studied X-inactivation in children with Aicardi Syndrome. I also did some work on the blood clotting Factor IX gene. Research was fulfilling, but I opted for a career swap and went back to school. I earned a Master’s degree in Science and Medical Journalism from Boston University and completed internships at Nature in Washington, D.C. and at Discover in New York City.