 |
| Volume 51, Number 4, Fall, 2002 |
OUR GANGby Rick Borchelt Taking time to smell the roses. Longtime editor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin Cori Vanchieri has left HHMI to return to freelancing. Returning to her roots. After nearly eight years away, freelancer Jessica Snyder Sachs returns to the New York City area. While she says she’ll be missing the good people of the Georgia Science Writers group, she’s looking forward to renewing old ties with former colleagues from her Discover/Science Digest days. Reach her at JSachs@mindspring.com. Desert roses. Freelancer Jon Christensen snagged a gig as a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University for 2002-03. The family (which includes wife Kit Miler, photographer) will be exchanging its Nevada vista for Bay-area fog. Jon plans to use his fellowship year working on basin-and-range ecology issues that he first explored in his book, Nevada (Graphic Arts Center Publishing, 2001). He’ll also freelance for many of Nevada’s papers and magazines as well as national outlets such as Mother Jones and Outside. He’s also been producing a series of radio feature stories called “Nevada Variations” for Nevada Public Radio and editing a Web site, GreatBasinNews.com. And like all wise NASWers, he’ll be keeping in touch via his NASW e-mail address, jonchristensen@nasw.org. Perennial staff member. The Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C., has promoted Joe Carey to senior director, communications and public affairs. He’s been the Society’s public information director for the past 12 years; his new duties include overseeing the society’s departments of editorial services, creative services, and government and public affairs. His e-mail is still joe@sfn.org (you get simple e-mail addresses like this if you’ve been online since the fall of Rome). A rose, not quite in Spanish Harlem. New York City also claims freelancer Rebecca Skloot, who’s moving to the Big Apple to become the associate editor of Popular Science. Pittsburgh’s loss, but she still hopes to continue freelancing. Her purview at the mag will be Biotech and Life Sciences. Congrats to her at rebecca.skloot@time4.com. Tokyo rose. Freelancer Sandra Katzman gets the cool gig award for this column. She’s just finished up a stint as rapporteur for Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) in Japan, a new kind of writing assignment as “meeting reporter” that is preparing her for additional gigs with meeting co-sponsor United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Sandra also hobnobs with other Japan-based NASW members; one dinner in Tokyo this summer included professor of science communication Kenji Makino from the Science University of Tokyo. Even internationally, NASW comes through for Sandra at skatzman@nasw.org. Flowers pulled out of a magician’s hat. A Juror’s Choice award for exhibit writing at this year’s meeting of the American Association of Museums in Dallas went to Bonnie Wallace of the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The nod went to her for a museum exhibit label she wrote for the traveling exhibit “Magic: The Science of Illusion;” Her entry was called “Wanted: Magician’s Assistant,” and explored the underappreciated work of lovely assistants in stage magic. Bonnie’s at bonnie@alumni.caltech.edu. Alpine flora. Going from the sea level of D.C. to 9,000+ feet sometimes left him gasping for air, but otherwise Bob Roehr thoroughly enjoyed his week in August at the 4th Rocky Mountain Workshop on Evidence-Based Health Care. The program was organized by the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided fellowships for eight journalists to join the larger group of physicians and policymakers at the workshop. See if he’s stopped hyperventilating at BobRoehr@aol.com. All-American selection. NSF’s former head of media relations, Mary Hanson, recently took a new position within the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs to oversee executive management operations. Mary’s also been very busy this past year on anthrax- and bioterrorism-related communication issues in her role as active reserve. She’s still at mhanson@nsf.gov. Do Bach flower remedies count? NIST just lost Linda Joy, an 11-year veteran, to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH. In her new science-writer role, she’ll be writing about the basic biomedical research NIGMS funds for their publications, reports, news releases, Web pages, and such. Her new address is JoyL@nigms.nih.gov. Seeds of a new organization. Freelance consultant Lara Pullen is the project coordinator and proposal writer for the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, a new collaborative, interdisciplinary institute that looks to put Chicago on the map of biomedical research. Consortium members include the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and University of Illinois at Chicago, and the project will go full speed ahead if the proposal is funded by a local philanthropist who is keen to set this in motion. Lara’s at lara@environmentalhealthconsulting.com. Newly transplanted. Veteran science editor Tom Siegfried, of the Dallas Morning News, will now be dividing his time between Santa Monica and Dallas. He’s following his wife, Chris, to her new digs as she starts a new job at UCLA. He’ll still be holding the reins in Dallas, though, and living half of each month there when he’s not on the road at scientific meetings. His new book, Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time, is just out from Joseph Henry Press. Track him down at tsiegfried@dallasnews.com. A tree grows in (or near) Brooklyn. John Langone, former associate editor at Time magazine and the author of 24 books, is now writing a book review column (Books on Health) in the Tuesday science section of The New York Times. Suggestions and comments to John at JLCT2@aol.com. Budding at Burnham. It’s a mere stone’s throw away from her old job, but Suzanne Clancy has moved from the Salk Institute in La Jolla to a new post as scientific liaison at The Burnham Institute. Wish her well at sclancy@burnham.org. And a spray of roses for: The Global Epidemic of Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, which Janice Hopkins Tanne co-authored with Dr. Lee Reichman, an international TB expert, won first prize as best trade book for the public from the American Medical Writers Association. Errata: Seems our migrating-birds metaphors ended up in some unfamiliar territory last issue. The item on Valerie Brown’s European visit confused the Balkans with the Baltics. It’s only a thousand miles or so, and geography was never a strong suit. We also managed to morph Maura Mackowski into a Laura. Blame the cold Boston winter; “Our Gang” had hardly thawed out by June. |
Perplexing
plant place. The Island of Rhum (or Rum, in modern spellings)
has a distinguished history as the site of a botanical hoax involving
arctic plants supposedly collected there in the first half of the
20th century. Christy Reed did a week on Rhum in
a scientific version of “Survivor” as a contestant on
the upcoming Learning Channel show “Escape from Experiment Island.”
Slated to air in January of 2003, Christy was a member of one of two
teams competing in a battle of wits to escape the remote Hebridean
archipelago. Learn more about the program at