Science Writing Resources (Friday follow-up)
Last Friday afternoon, I spoke on a panel about media careers for the “What Can You Be With A Ph.D.?” Symposium held at NYU Langone Medical Center. I talked to several students and postdocs after the program and wanted to pull together a list of resources related to careers in science writing. It was a [...]
Both Science and Family– but not all at once
My latest story for Science Careers is up– about women who took extended family breaks from their careers and came back to the laboratory. I was impressed with these women’s creativity in crafting career and family life in ways that worked for them. What surprised me a little when I was doing the interviews for [...]
Truth Values: women in the equation
It’s evolved into women in science month here at Webb of Science. On October 9, I saw Gioia De Cari‘s one woman show, “Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp through MIT’s Male Math Maze” at the CUNY Graduate Center. Larry Summers’ now infamous comments about women in science inspired her to turn her own experiences as [...]
Chemistry Nobel, women, and the "choice"
On Monday, I mentioned that it was a good week for women in science. Well, it got even better today with the announcement of the chemistry prize. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science becomes the fourth woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry (sharing the prize with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the [...]
Loose ends or a visitor in her former country
“So do you consider yourself a scientist or a writer?” An undergraduate student asked me that question last fall when I guest-lectured about communicating research for a social-scientist friend’s seminar course. I immediately said, “A writer, but I write about science.” But I do understand why he was confused. Even having done it, I wouldn’t [...]
The business of creative endeavors (including science)
When I was reporting my most recent article for Science Careers– about the financial end of setting up a new academic laboratory– I couldn’t help but think about the parallels to the day-to-day nuts and bolts of my own work. Though I never set up an independent laboratory, it’s clear to me that both freelance [...]
Encouraging (women) scientists to opt in to academia
It’s an interesting week to talk about women in science. On Tuesday afternoon, I listened in on the end of a White House panel discussion about Title IX and its impact on women in both athletics and science and technology. Scientific American also reported on a new government study about the state of women in [...]
Webb of Science gives fashion advice
Fashion is not normally my beat. But I’m a science writer who writes careers articles, the most recent one about dressing for job interviews. So, today anyway, I’m a writer who gives fashion advice to scientists. Even though my workday fashion choices these days often remain within the home office, I do take pride in [...]
Science, Journalism and Inform-vs-Educate
Almost 6 years ago, I attended a conference of scientists and communicators about issues of communicating global warming to the general public. At that point I was still wearing my graduate student hat and was still learning the ropes of science writing. The issues related to global warming and the public were different– this was [...]
Connecting science and life: a guest post by Jennifer L.W. Fink
Before I was a writer, before I was a mom of four boys – before I was the mother of one boy – I was a nurse. Guess I’ve always been interested in science. In high school, I loved biology and advanced biology. In college, I studied anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, microbiology, chemistry, biochemistry, nutrition and [...]
