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.
Clients contact me for a wide range of writing and editing jobs. For example, I was invited to attend an international conference on suicide prevention in Eastern Europe and develop a book-length report based on the presentations and discussion that took place during the conference. The report is currently in review. One of my more interesting assignments was an obituary for renowned evolutionary biology Ernst Mayr, who died at the age of 100. On the education front, I wrote a string of "What We Know" and "Why We Care" articles for Nature Publishing Group's undergraduate genetics education website. By October 2011, one of the articles, "Discovery of DNA Structure and Function: Watson and Crick," had been viewed more than 184,000 times!I also developed and taught for four years a Communicating in the Life Sciences course at Bay Path College, Longmeadow, MA. The course covered how scientists communicate with each other, as well as how science gets communicated (or not) to the public at large.
Although I write about a broad range of life science topics, I tend to be drawn mostly toward genetics (and epigenetics) and public health. I am especially curious about the intersection between science as a way of knowing and the application of that knowledge (or not) in public policy.
When I’m not writing or reading, you'll probably find me on the tennis court, in the kitchen, or just about anywhere outdoors. And I love to travel - that photo of me on the front page is from a trip to Annecy, France, in 2010.
"There is a very
lot of bees in a big bee hive."
- The Bee Report by Leslie Pray, 1972
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