Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program
Faculty

SHERP courses are taught by experienced science writers, editors, scientists and journalists working in the field.

Dan Fagin SHERP Director
(Current Topics in Science, Health and Environmental Journalism, Environmental Reporting)
Dan Fagin is a nationally prominent journalist on environmental health topics. He received his bachelor's degree in government in 1985 from Dartmouth College, where he was the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. He spent two years at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune before joining Newsday, where he covered local and state politics until he was named the paper's environmental writer in 1991. He was twice a principal member of Newsday teams that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: in 1994 for stories about pesticides and breast cancer risk and in 2004 for coverage of the causes of the 2003 Northeast blackout. His stories about cancer epidemiology in 2003 were awarded both of the best-known science journalism prizes in the United States: from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Science Writers. He is the co-author of Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law and Endangers Your Health (1999, Common Courage Press), which in its original hardcover edition was a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors book prize in 1997. Dan is currently at work on a book for Bantam/Random House that intertwines three related story lines: the history of environmental cancer epidemiology, the half-century saga of the Toms River, N.J., childhood cancer cluster, and current research into gene-environment interactions in cancer. He has been a Templeton-Cambridge Fellow in Science & Religion and has also had fellowships at the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Institute of Arctic Biology. Dan is a former president of the 1,500-member Society of Environmental Journalists and has written stories on environmental and science topics for Mademoiselle, Family Circle and many other magazines. Two articles he wrote for Harvard University’s Nieman Reports about issues confronting science and environmental journalism are available here and here. After teaching SHERPies for seven years as an adjunct NYU faculty member, Fagin joined the full-time faculty in 2005 as an associate professor of journalism. "Being part of SHERP is just like being part of a family," he says, "except that there are almost 300 people in the family portraits.”

William E. Burrows SHERP Founder and Director Emeritus
Bill Burrows (alias "Mom" to SHERPies) received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia University. Having reported for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bill has a rich and varied background in print reporting. Bill also has had articles in The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs, The Sciences, Harvard Magazine and Harper's, and is a contributing editor for Air & Space/Smithsonian. He is the author of eleven books: Richthofen: A True History Of The Red Baron (1969); Vigilante (1976); On Reporting The News (1977); Deep Black: Space Espionage And National Security (1987); Exploring Space: Voyages In The Solar System And Beyond (1990); Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race For Superweapons In A Fragmenting World (with Robert Windrem)(1993); Mission To Deep Black: Voyager's Journey Of Discovery (1993); This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (1998); The Infinite Journey: Eyewitness Accounts of NASA and the Age of Space (2000); By Any Means Necessary: America's Secret Air War in the Cold War (2001); and his latest, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth (2006). This New Ocean, considered the definitive single-volume history of the space age, was one of three finalists for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History and also won the American Astronautical Society's Eugene M. Emme award for astronautical literature. Recently, the International Astronomical Union named the minor planet (aka asteroid) #9930 "Billburrows." Bill points out that since #9930 is not an Earth-crosser, Billburrows will never wipe out Bill Burrows. "It would be absolutely appropriate, of course, if it is shaped like a colossal martini olive," he adds.

Charles Bergquist
(Multimedia Science Journalism Workshop)
Charles Bergquist, a 1997 graduate of SHERP, is the director of the program "Talk of the Nation: Science Friday," heard on over 200 public radio stations across the country. He also manages the program's web content and helped launch its podcast offerings. Charles is also a contributing producer to Science Friday, where he has covered topics ranging from cancer genetics and political decision-making to spaceflight and nanomaterials. He writes regularly about microelectronics for Frost and Sullivan's 'Technical Insights' series, and has edited books for children on topics including AIDS, puberty, and Lyme disease. His writing has appeared in publications from Scholastic's SuperScience to Popular Science. Prior to joining Science Friday, he was one of the first employees of ScienCentral, a television science news production company, where he helped build a companion web site for Transistorized!, a PBS documentary about the invention of the transistor. He has a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Delaware as well as an M.A. in journalism from SHERP at NYU.

Mariette DiChristina
(Science Writing)
Mariette DiChristina joined Scientific American as executive editor in April 2001. She also runs the bimonthly Scientific American Mind and manages Scientific American’s quarterly newsstand special editions. Previously, she was executive editor of Popular Science, where she worked for nearly 14 years. Her writing and editing about space topics helped garner Popular Science the Space Foundation’s 2001 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award. Earlier, she was a reporter for the Gannett-Westchester Newspapers (now the Journal News) and a stringer for papers in New York and Massachusetts. In 2005 she was Science Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her chapter on science editing appears in A Field Guide for Science Writers (Oxford University Press, 2005). DiChristina is an officer on the board of the National Association of Science Writers, and former chair of Science Writers in New York. She holds a B.S. in magazine journalism from Boston University.

Adam Glenn
(Writing and Reporting Workshop I)
Adam Glenn is a print journalist turned new media maven, with specialties in health, environment, science, technology, business and media. Now an independent online consultant, he has held a wide variety of news posts during the last 25 years, most recently as senior producer at ABCNews.com in New York. Adam first covered environmental issues as executive editor of the news service Greenwire, has freelanced for Popular Science and NPR's Living on Earth, and consulted with Rodale's Prevention.com and NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright. New media projects include Columbia School of Journalism's News 21 program, and the University of Maryland J-Lab's Knight Citizen News Network web site. He co-founded I, Reporter, a citizen journalism training business and blog whose projects include a new web site to cover a Boulder, Colo., carbon tax initiative. In 2002, Adam was awarded a Ford Environmental Journalism Fellowship to teach in India, and in 2005, received an Environmental Media Fellowship at the Vermont Law School. A long-time organizer of training programs and workshops, he has received training of his own at the University of Colorado-Boulder Center for Environmental Journalism, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., and the Poynter Institute in Florida. Adam has a masters in international affairs (environmental policy) from Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy in Boston, and a journalism bachelor's from Boston University. He is an active member of the Online News Association and the Society of Environmental Journalists, where he served as co-editor of its quarterly journal and currently sits on its editorial advisory board.

Sharon Guynup
(SHERP internship coordinator)
Sharon Guynup is the internship coordinator at SHERP, and as such is responsible for assisting students in finding science journalism internships and supervising their work in for-credit internships. All SHERP students must complete at least one internship, and most complete two. Sharon also works closely with graduating students to assist them in their search for full-time work in science journalism. A freelance writer and editor, Sharon released her first book last year, State of the Wild 2006: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans. She has written and edited on science and the environment for nationalgeographic.com, The New York Times Syndicate, Scientific American, Popular Science, Audubon, Wildlife Conservation, and other publications. She graduated with an MA from NYU's SHERP Program in 1999. Prior to that, she worked as a photojournalist, traveling globally, and lived in Turkey for year on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Christine Gorman
(Journalistic Judgment)
Christine Gorman received a bachelor's degree in biology from Rice University and a master's in science writing from Johns Hopkins University. After a brief stint working for the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., she took a job with Time Magazine, where she worked for more than 20 years in the business, nation, science and health sections. She inaugurated the magazine's personal health section, which won awards from the National Press Club and the Deadline Club. Her cover stories, which addressed such topics as AIDS, anxiety, cancer, diabetes and sleep disorders, consistently ranked among the magazine's top sellers each year. In 2008 she received a Nieman Fellowship to study global health at Harvard University, followed by a three-month reporting trip to investigate the nursing crisis in Malawi.

Robert Lee Hotz
(Coordinator of the Inside/Out SHERP Speaker Series)
Robert Lee Hotz is the host and organizer of SHERP's evening speaker series, Inside/Out, in which nationally prominent science, health and environmental journalists discuss their work with SHERP students in an informal setting. Hotz, who is the science columnist at The Wall Street Journal, is a Distinguished Writer in Residence in the NYU Department of Journalism and the current president of the National Association of Science Writers. Hotz was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1986 for his coverage of genetic engineering issues, and again in 2004 for his coverage of the space shuttle Columbia accident. He also shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for articles about the Northridge Earthquake. He is the author of Designs On Life, Exploring The New Frontiers of Human Fertility, and a contributor to several books on research issues. He has received many honors, including national awards from The Society of Professional Journalists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Geophysical Union. He is an elected Fellow of the AAAS; an honorary life member of Sigma Xi, The Research Society; and is vice president of the National Association of Science Writers. His career has included stints as a reporter and editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Pittsburgh Press and The News-Virginian. He has traveled three times to the South Pole under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. Professor Hotz received his B.A. in English and M.A. in Theater History from Tufts University.

Speakers in the Inside/Out series have included: Deborah Blum, author and journalism professor; Benedict Carey, neuroscience writer, The New York Times; Laura Chang, science editor, The New York Times; Dan Grossman, freelance radio and web producer; Robin Marantz Henig, author and contributor, The New York Times Magazine; Elizabeth Kolbert, author and writer for The New Yorker; Michael Lemonick, author and former senior science writer, Time magazine; Paul Raeburn, author and magazine writer; John Rennie, editor in chief, Scientific American; Andrew Revkin, environmental reporter, The New York Times; Nancy Shute, science writer, U.S. News & World Report; and Carl Zimmer, science author, blogger and freelancer for The New York Times.

Emily Laber-Warren
(Writing and Reporting Workshop II)
Emily Laber-Warren is the special projects editor at Women's Health, where she oversees health coverage, the news section, and a column called "Are You Game?" in which women do daring, embarrassing and risky things and write about the experience. From 2001 to 2005 she was at Popular Science, first as features editor and then as executive editor. Before that she was a senior editor at The Sciences (a literary science magazine that is now, sadly, defunct). A humanities major at Yale, she began her career as a reporter at daily newspapers, including the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she covered education and city hall, and The (Bergen) Record in New Jersey, where she covered the environment. She has taught at SHERP since 1998.

Ivan Oransky, MD
(Medical Writing)
Ivan Oransky, MD is executive editor of Reuters Health. Previously, he was managing editor, online, at Scientific American, where he oversaw dramatic growth in website traffic and engagement. From 2002 to 2008, he was at The Scientist, first as web editorial director and then as deputy editor. Under his leadership, the editorial team of The Scientist won numerous awards, including the 2008 American Society of Business Publication Editors' Magazine of the Year and Gold Eddie Awards for science magazines from FOLIO in consecutive years. He has also served as founding editor in chief of Praxis Post, an online magazine of medicine and culture which was a finalist for the 2001 Online News Association Award for General Excellence in its first year of publication. Oransky is the author or co-author of four books, including The Common Symptom Answer Guide (McGraw-Hill, 2004), and has written for numerous publications including the Boston Globe, The Lancet, The New Republic, and the Wall Street Journal Online. He received his BA at Harvard and his MD from NYU, and completed an internship at Yale. During medical school, he was co-editor-in-chief of the student section of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He has served on the board of directors of the Association of Health Care Journalists since 2002. That was also the year he began teaching medical writing in the SHERP Program at NYU. Ivan also holds an appointment at NYU Medical School as Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, and teaches at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.

John Rennie
(Science Writing)
John Rennie served as editor in chief of Scientific American for almost 15 years, having been a member of its Board of Editors since 1989. During his tenure he oversaw the modernization and expansion of that venerable magazine franchise to include new titles such as Scientific American Mind and assorted digital media. He edited the National Magazine Award-winning single-topic issues "What You Need to Know about Cancer" (Sept. 1996) and "A Matter of Time" (Sept. 2002). The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies honored him with its 2003 Navigator Award for distinguished service in support of national science and technology policy. He was also a recipient of the 2000 Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science from the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. Rennie received his bachelor of science degree from Yale University in 1981, after which he worked for several years in a laboratory at Harvard Medical School before embarking on his career as a science writer. His writing has appeared in The Economist, The New York Times and other publications. His numerous television and radio appearances include PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, ABC News Overnight, CBS Early Show, History Channel's Clash of the Cavemen, Discovery Channel’s Apocalypse How and NPR’s Science Friday. As a frequent public speaker, Rennie has appeared before audiences as diverse as those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Tennessee School of Journalism; he has also been featured twice at the World Life Sciences Forum, the BIO International Conference and many other meetings.

Charles Seife
(Science Literacy and Numeracy)
Before joining the Department of Journalism, Charles Seife was writer for Science magazine—specializing in physics and mathematics—and had been a U.S. correspondent for New Scientist. He holds an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University, an M.S. in mathematics from Yale University, and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. His research interests include science and mathematics journalism.

Seife's freelance work has appeared in The Economist, Scientific American, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and other publications. He is also the author of Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000), which won the 2000 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, as well as Alpha & Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe (2003) and the forthcoming Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, From Our Brains to Black Holes (2005).

Bijal Trivedi
(SHERP Bench Press Coordinator)
Bijal Trivedi is the coordinator of Bench Press, a program that sends sends second-semester SHERP students into laboratories across the NYU campus to cover cutting-edge research. Trivedi is a SHERP graduate and an award-winning freelance writer specializing in science. Prior to her freelance career, she was an editor for the National Geographic News Service, a wire service that she helped launch in collaboration with the New York Times Syndicate. Trivedi is a former staff writer for the Genome News Network, a website covering genetics and genomics news for the layperson. Her work has appeared in New Scientist, Wired, The Economist, National Geographic, Discover, New York, and Air & Space among others. Trivedi has a BA in biochemistry from Oberlin College, an MS in biology from University of California, Los Angeles, and an MA in science journalism from New York University. Trivedi won the 2006 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award and was a recipient of the 2005-2006 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award.

Carl Zimmer
(Visiting Scholar)
The New York Times Book Review calls Carl Zimmer "as fine a science essayist as we have." Zimmer is the author of seven acclaimed books about biology and medicine, as well as hundreds of articles for the New York Times, Time, National Geographic, Scientific American, and many other magazines. He also writes an award-winning blog about science called "The Loom," hosted by Discover. He has served as a scientific editor for television documentaries, helped design museum exhibits and contributed his writing to major science web sites. A graduate of Yale, Zimmer first began writing about science at Discover, where he served as a senior editor. His work has been anthologized in both The Best American Science and Nature Writing series and The Best American Science Writing series. He has won fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. His articles have earned a number of awards, including the National Academies 2007 Communication Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Science Journalism Award, and the American Institute Biological Sciences Media Award. His 2004 book Soul Made Flesh was named one of the 100 notable books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, and his latest book, Microcosm, was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Zimmer lectures frequently at universities, medical schools, and museums, and is a frequent guest on radio shows such as Fresh Air and This American Life.