Leslie A. Pray    Ph.D.
lpray@nasw.org        

HOME BIOGRAPHY CLIENTS PUBLICATIONS ABOUT ME

 

 

I’ve been writing about science since the 1st grade.

I don't know whether it was the writer or scientist in me that was trying to emerge when I wrote "The Bee Report." My parents and teachers must have figured it was the scientist, because that's who was encouraged and prodded year after year, all the way to grad school and a PhD in Population Genetics.

But I’m done doing science. Now I just write about it.

I've been freelancing since 2000. In the beginning, most of what I did would probably be considered science journalism. But I quickly re-discovered my knack for report-writing. Most of the reports I write are based on either workshops and symposia (mostly in Washington, D.C., although clients send me all over the world) or interviews and literature research. Clients contact me for various other writing and editing jobs as well. One of my more interesting assignments was an obituary for renowned evolutionary biology Ernst Mayr, who died in 2005 at the age of 100. I interviewed Professor Mayr (before his death, obviously) at his home in Bedford, MA. More recently, I wrote a string of "What We Know" and "Why We Care" articles for an undergraduate genetics education website launched by Nature Publishing Group in 2008.

I also teach a Communicating in the Life Sciences course every Fall semester at Bay Path College, Longmeadow, MA. The course covers how (and why) scientists communicate with each other, as well as how (and why) science gets communicated (or not) to the public at large.

When I’m not writing (or reading), you'll probably find me outdoors or in the kitchen. I like to hike, kayak, play tennis, and cook. Oh yeah, and I love to travel - that photo of me on the front page is from a trip to Germany in August '09.

"There is a very lot of bees in a big bee hive."
    - The Bee Report by Leslie Pray,
1972

 

 


View the original...