Marcia Bartusiak
Professor of the Practice, MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing
Graduation Year:
1995
Bio:
Combining her undergraduate training in journalism with a master’s degree in physics, Marcia Bartusiak has been covering the fields of astronomy and physics for nearly four decades. She has published in a variety of publications, including Science, Smithsonian, Discover, National Geographic, and Astronomy.
The author of six books, she is currently Professor of the Practice of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her latest books are a revised edition of Einstein's Unfinished Symphony, her award-winning history of gravitational-wave astronomy, Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved, and The Day We Found the Universe, on the birth of modern cosmology, which won the Davis Prize of the History of Science Society. Her book Archives of the Universe, a history of the major discoveries in astronomy told through a hundred of its original scientific publications, is used in introductory astronomy courses across the nation.
In 1982, she was the first woman to win the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award and five years later was a finalist in NASA‘s Journalist-in-Space competition. She has also received an AIP Gemant Award, the Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and in 2008 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, cited for “exceptionally clear communication of the rich history, the intricate nature, and the modern practice of astronomy to the public at large.”
Location:
Sudbury, Massachusetts, United States
Career:
Professor, Science Writer, Author
Website:
http://www.marciabartusiak.com