OUR GANG

by Rick Borchelt

Rick Borchelt

Bob Finn leaves the world of freelance for the steady gig as the San Francisco Bureau Chief for the International Medical News Group, a collection of medical trades based in Rockville, MD. Bob says the ad in the S.F. Chronicle boasting "best of both worlds-work at home while enjoying the benefits of a full-time job" so far has been truth in advertising. He will continue his duties as NASW Cybrarian but steps down as deputy editor of ScienceWriters.

Richard Saltus has left the science desk of the Boston Globe to become senior science writer/editor in the Department of Communications at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. New contact info for Richard is richard.saltus@dfci.harvard.edu.

Part of the gap at the Globe may be filled by freelance pieces on which Carol Morton is working. But Carol also will be splitting her time with the new job she snagged recently as science writer for Harvard Medical School. Her new e-mail at Harvard is carol_morton@hms.harvard.edu.

CASE Awards found their way to Ohio University members Kelli Whitlock and Andrea Gibson: gold for the university research magazine (Kelli is editor, Andrea assistant editor) and silver to the team for excellence in research, medicine, and science news writing.

Bob Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and freelance writer, learned you can have your cake and eat it too. He scored a triple play recently for his Washington Post food section column, "Food 101." The column, also syndicated by United Feature Syndicate, won a 2001 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award, the International Association of Culinary Professionals' 2001 Bert Greene Award, and an award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Bob also has a new food science book in the works for W. W. Norton, tentatively titled, What Einstein Told His Cook.

A writing prize this issue also goes to Curt Suplee, late of the Washington Post and now heading up public affairs at the National Science Foundation. He received a 2001 popular writing award from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. Curt won for his article "Sun Studies May Shed Light on Global Warming," which ran in the Post on Oct. 9, 2000.

Karen Watson moves from Discovery.com to a new job with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where she will be the new media project development officer. Karen says her task is to help move CPB and public broadcasting teams through the "paradigm shift" to convergent, multimedia thinking. It's a short new commute, from Discovery headquarters in Bethesda, MD, to CPB's Washington, DC headquarters. Reach her at KWatson@cpb.org. Hey, Karen-any chance you can get them to move pledge drives entirely into cyberspace?

Los Angeles Times science editor Joel Greenberg takes a leave of absence later this year to teach as the LA Times Journalist in Residence at the University of Southern California. He'll return to his post at the newspaper in January, 2002. Joel's e-mail still reaches him during the teaching gig, joel.greenberg@latimes.com.

Mari Jensen leaves the freelance fold to become the science writer for the Tucson (Arizona) Citizen newspaper. This summer, though, she'll be a Marine Biological Laboratory Science Writing Fellow in Woods Hole, MA.

Mariette DiChristina ended 13 years at Popular Science (we remember her as a copy editor, not to mention executive editor) to take on the newly created position of executive editor at Scientific American. Her new e-mail is mdichristina@sciam.com.

Marge Davenport likes to keep science writing in the family. After 10 years of publishing the quarterly Oregon Science News, she passed along the job to her daughter and granddaughter and becomes the News' features editor. It will leave her more time to freelance-since "retiring" as science and features editor of the daily Oregon Journal some years back, she's freelanced widely and written five books on early Northwest history.

And you all thought Diana Somerville was a freelance. Nope! Well, not just a freelance-she's also a bagel-baking waitress and co-proprietress of the new Mermaid Cafe and Port of Angels in Port Angeles, WA. Buy your bagels at Mermaid Cafe, your baubles, bangles and beads (sales of which help support a Nepalese women's charity) at Port of Angels. And when you stop by, Diana asks that you remind her what it's like to be a science writer.

Diana Steele is picking up the PR reins again (until mid-August), as interim director of communications for the School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors has named Lynne Lamberg's latest book, The Body Clock Guide to Better Health, the 2001 Outstanding Book Award in the service/self-help/collaborative category.

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Rick Borchelt is outreach strategist in the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. Send hot NASW-related gossip to Rick at rborchelt@nasw.org, or phone him at 202-586-6702.