Writers

Sandi Doughton

Science Writer

Sandi Doughton has been covering science, medicine and the environment for more than 25 years, first in New Mexico, then in the Pacific Northwest. Doughton set out to be a biologist, but after graduate research that required her to stand in a walk-in freezer and drip rattlesnake venom into test tubes, she decided to combine her interests in journalism and science. Her science reporting has taken her to the Bering Sea, where she covered climate change and chased seals over pancake ice, and to Africa, where she wrote about the Gates Foundation’s efforts to develop a vaccine for malaria. Earth science is one of her favorite subjects, because it’s a great example of the way research can make a difference in people’s lives. Doughton’s story “Laser maps reveal slide risk with startling clarity, but few citizens know they exist,” (featured on Showcase) earned her the prestigious Perlman Award from the American Geophysical Union in 2015.

John Fauber

Medical Reporter

John Fauber is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s medical reporter, a position he has held since 1996. He is spending the 2019-20 academic years as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. As a member of the team that in 2013 exposed problems with the nation’s newborn screening programs, Fauber won a series of awards, including the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting and a Gerald Loeb Award for business-related investigations. Other recognition came from Investigative Reporters and Editors, Associated Press Media Editors, the American Society of News Editors and the Online News Association. In both 2011 and 2012, his investigations into medical conflicts of interest helped lead to U.S. Senate investigations. He won the 2013 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting from CASW; a 2012 Gerald A. Loeb Award for beat reporting; the 2010 National Headliner Award for medical/health/science reporting; and the 2010 silver Barlett & Steele Award. One of his stories “What happened to the poster children of OxyContin?” is featured on Showcase. Fauber also won the 2004 Howard L. Lewis Achievement Award for a five-year collection of stories focusing on heart disease and stroke; the 2003 American Society for Microbiology’s Public Communications Award for two stories he co-authored on prion diseases in humans and animals; and a 1992 Loeb Award for a series about Wisconsin corporations moving jobs to Mexico. He also was part of a team that was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for a series on chronic wasting disease in the state’s deer population. Fauber has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Douglas Fox

Freelance Journalist

Douglas Fox is a freelance journalist who writes extensively on earth, Antarctic, and polar sciences. His stories have appeared in Scientific American, National Geographic, Esquire, Virginia Quarterly Review, High Country News, Discover, Nature, Slate, The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. His stories have garnered awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (2011), the National Association of Science Writers (2013), the American Geophysical Union (2015), the Society of Environmental Journalists (2016), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009 & 2017). “The Dust Detectives” (featured on Showcase) won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism in 2015. And “Inside the Firestorm” (featured on Showcase as well) won the AAAS Kavli award in 2017. He is also a contributing author to The Science Writers’ Handbook (Da Capo, 2013).

Amanda Gefter

Physics Writer

Amanda Gefter is a physics writer and author of Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing and the Beginning of Everything. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her Nautilus story “The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic” (featured on Showcase) received the 2015 Kavli Science Journalism Silver Award in the Magazine category. The piece also won a Golden Giraffe Award from The Browser and a Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times. It will also be included in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016. Follow Gefter on Twitter @amandagefter.

Azeen Ghorayshi

Science Reporter

Azeen Ghorayshi is a science reporter at BuzzFeed News. Prior to that, she wrote for places like the Guardian, New Scientist, Nautilus, Newsweek, and Motherboard. These days, she mostly focuses on stories about sex and gender, HIV/AIDS, reproductive technologies, and sexism in science, but she used to report about all sorts of things—including earthquakes. Her East Bay Express story “Sounding the Alarm” (featured on Showcase) was the recipient of the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award in the small-newspaper category. It won first place in the long-form news category of the 2014 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Awards, and second place for best news story in a non-daily newspaper in the Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards. It also received an honorable mention for CASW’s 2013 Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists. Follow Ghorayshi on Twitter @Azeen.

Ann Gibbons

Ann Gibbons is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors, which was a finalist for the LA Times best science and technology book. She also has taught science writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and written about human evolution for National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian magazine and other publications. She has been awarded the 2018 National Academy of Sciences  Communication Awards for best magazine/newspaper article; the 2014 Society of American Archaeology Gene S. Stuart Award; the National Academy of Sciences 2013 Communication Awards for best magazine/newspaper article; and the 2012 Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for a decade’s worth of stories on human origins and evolution. Her story “The Ultimate Sacrifice” (featured on Showcase) is one of those many award-winning stories. 

Andrew Grant

Editor

Andrew Grant is the online editor at Physics Today. After graduating from New York University’s Science, Health & Environmental Reporting Program, he worked at Discover and at Science News. His Science News story on Voyager 1 entering interstellar space won the American Geophysical Union’s 2014 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism (featured on Showcase). His work has also been recognized by the American Institute of Physics. Follow him on Twitter @Sci_Grant.

Shannon Hall

Freelance Science Journalist

Shannon Hall is an award-winning freelance science journalist who specializes in writing about astronomy, geology and the environment. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, Quanta, Nature, National Geographic and elsewhere. Her story “Earth’s Tectonic Activity May Be Crucial for Life — and Rare in Our Galaxy (featured on Showcase) won the American Geophysical Union’s David Perlman award in 2018. Today, she lives in the Rocky Mountains and spends her free time hiking around mountain lakes or planning future trips. She is also a contributing editor at Sky & Telescope magazine and was Showcase’s  managing editor through January 2020. Follow her on Twitter at @ShannonWHall. 

Mark Harris

Investigative Technology Reporter

Mark Harris is an investigative technology reporter based in Seattle, writing for The Guardian, IEEE Spectrum, Backchannel, MIT Technology Review, The Economist and New Scientist. He has broken stories about self-driving vehicles, giant airships, AI body scanners, faulty defibrillators, and monkey-powered robots. Recently, one of his public records requests for Backchannel triggered Waymo’s lawsuit against Uber. In 2014, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and in 2015 he won the AAS Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award for his story How A Lone Hacker Shredded the Myth of Crowdsourcing (featured on Showcase). He is currently a MuckRock Fellow, and is always interested in tips. You can find him on Twitter @meharris.

David Heath

Independent Journalist

David Heath is an independent journalist whose work has appeared on PBS Frontline, the CBS Evening News, the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, TheAtlantic.com and Time.com. He formerly worked at CNN, the Center for Public Integrity and the Seattle Times. In recent years, he has covered the environment, toxic chemicals and scientific integrity. He appeared in the Netflix documentary series “Dirty Money.” He’s won numerous national prizes, including the Goldsmith, Polk and Loeb awards. His story “Meet the ‘Rented White Coats’ Who Defend Toxic Chemicals” (featured on Showcase) won a NASW Science in Society Journalism Award in 2017. He is a three-time Pulitzer finalist for work he did with others. He was a Nieman fellow and taught journalism at the University of Washington and Harvard’s extension school.