Backgrounder: Michael Lemonick
Journalist Michael Lemonick.
RELATED:
A few months ago writer Michael Lemonick found himself in a place that could be described as the setting of a romance novel: underneath the stars in Hawaii. He wasn't just there to stargaze, however. Lemonick, the senior science writer at Time Magazine, was at the Keck Observatory to witness British Astronomer Richard Ellis, and his graduate assistant Dan Stark, try to view six new galaxies, each only half a billion years younger than the Big Bang. If successful, these astronomers would be the first people to view "the most distant galaxy ever seen," beating the current record by half a billion years.
In Hawaii, Lemonick was in his element. Astronomy is one of his favorite sciences, as evidenced by his three books on the subject: The Light at the End of the Universe, which examines the Bing Bang Theory (Princeton University Press, 1995), Other Worlds, a novel about the search for extraterrestrial life (Simon & Shuster, 1998), and Echo of the Big Bang (Princeton University Press, 2003). But, whether he's writing about a far off galaxy, oceanography, astrophysics, or archaeology, he tells the stories of science through its researchers and practitioners. Science is the star, humanity the invaluable supporting cast.
Born on October 13, 1953, Lemonick has lived almost all of his life in Princeton, New Jersey, a community centered on university life. He came from a family that valued academic pursuits. Lemonick's father got a master's degree in physics at Princeton and went on to become a professor at the university. According to Lemonick, his family used to see Einstein walking around town, "eating an ice cream cone." Lemonick may have been "too young to care" who that man with the wild, white hair was, but this wouldn't always be the case thanks to his father, who soon got him interested in science. "My father used to tell me and my brother stories about stars, planets, atoms, molecules and such," he said in an email. "He was very good at making science understandable and exciting—so I got excited."
After graduating from Harvard in 1976 with a degree in Economics, Lemonick got a job as a proofreader for New Yorker writer John McPhee after introducing himself to the writer at a Princeton event. Lemonick viewed McPhee as "a deity," but the job, which involved a great deal of copywriting, was somewhat "mind-numbing," he said. After a few years, he was ready to try his own hand at writing.
Science journalism became a prominent medium in the 1980s with the founding of such publications as The New York Times' Science Times and Discover. "Naturally, I read them all," said Lemonick. He'd found his niche in this marriage of science and journalism and enrolled in Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, earning a Master's degree in 1983.
After graduation, with the help of his former boss John McPhee, Lemonick got a job as a stringer for The Home News in New Brunswick, New Jersey, covering local municipal government. "At one point, knowing of my connection to McPhee, they asked if I'd get him to agree to having a profile written—not by me, of course, but by an experienced reporter." McPhee agreed on the condition that Lemonick write the piece. "They had no choice, so I wrote it," said Lemonick. After a couple of years and some more clips at The Home News, Lemonick became a writer for Science Digest magazine. Three years later, he was promoted to senior editor. A short stint as an executive editor for Discover magazine followed; 12 years ago, Lemonick found his home as a senior science writer for Time.
Lemonick has published close to 50 cover stories on subjects ranging from health to particle physics and genomics. He has also contributed numerous articles to Discover, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times of London, and other publications. Over the years, Lemonick's work has garnered prestigious awards, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science Westinghouse Award for Distinguished Magazine Writing in 1987 and 1990, and the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award for Other Worlds. Currently, he is working on a novel about William Herschel, the man who discovered Uranus, and writing for Time's expanding website.
Realizing that the magazine's future lay online, Lemonick decided to "get in on the ground floor," and start a blog early on for Time.com, which he did in February 2006. His blog, "Eye on Science," allows him almost total control over content and presentation, he said. For Lemonick, it's a new found freedom and chance to explore. "I write about whatever I want; the editors sometimes suggest ideas but I get to say 'no.' I just write about things that strike me as important or quirky," he told this reporter.
SOURCES
- Lemonick, Michael. "Let There Be Light." Time. September 4, 2006.
- Lemonick, Michael. E-mail interviews with this reporter. October 13, 15 and 22, 2006.