Protecting Wildlife
Erich Hoyt (‘86) received the honor of Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 British New Year’s Day Honors “for services to marine conservation,” noting his writing and research into whales. As co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, Hoyt is engaged in a long-term project with more than 350 scientists to map whale and other marine mammal habitats and offer the peer-reviewed results in a hands-on spatial tool called “Important Marine Mammal Areas.” Since 2013, the team has examined 80 percent of the global ocean. The data is cited by environmental investigation agencies and maritime organizations and is used in everything from ship rerouting to marine protected area proposals.
Hoyt also writes popular science books, encouraging public interest in the species he works to protect. Among his latest titles are “Planktonia,” “Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises,” “Strange Sea Creatures,” and “Creatures of the Deep,” all of which will be available in Japanese and Chinese by the end of 2025. He credits his time at KSJ for kickstarting much of his work today. “During my fellowship, the classes at Harvard with William Bossert (Ecology) and E.O. Wilson (Evolutionary Biology) were fundamental to much of what has followed. The class with Wilson led to travels with him in Costa Rica, two books (“The Earth Dwellers” and “Insect Lives”), and a mentorship. He advised me as my work developed from science journalism to marine conservation and academic papers and books.”
Rene Ebersole (‘22) co-founded a new nonprofit journalism organization called Wildlife Investigative Reporters & Editors (WIRE), digging deep into stories about wildlife crime and animal exploitation. WIRE is welcoming a growing roster of star advisors, Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle among them. Ebersole’s first investigation for WIRE—a story rooted in the imperiled forests of Africa’s Congo Basin—is set to be published in Rolling Stone later this year.
Stewarding the Profession of Science Journalism
Mico Tatalovic (‘18) is working on multiple projects to protect the future of science journalism in South-East Europe and globally.
He established a new initiative with the European Federation for Science Journalism (EFSJ) to safeguard science journalists’ freedoms and rights. They publish relevant statements to support journalists and protect their livelihoods. In 2025 the group published a manifesto for better supporting freelance science journalists and a statement on freedoms, rights, and independence of science journalists. Tatalovic hopes “science journalists can use these to better inform others about their work and to help them push against unreasonable requests and negotiated better freelance fees and work conditions.”
For the past few years, Tatalovic has also worked with EFSJ and the Balkan Network of Science Journalists to organize a series of seminars to reconnect and reenergize reporters in South-East Europe after the disruptions of the pandemic years. They bring together journalists in a host nation for a productive day of discussions, akin to a small national science journalists conference, where early-career colleagues can mingle with and learn from experienced professionals.
The initiative is backed by EurekAlert! and various local partners, such as the Croatian Journalists’ Association, and Serbia’s Institute for Physics Belgrade. The partnership has produced events in Zagreb, Croatia (2023), and Ljubljana, Slovenia (2024), and the group is planning an event in Belgrade, Serbia (2025).
Telling the Story of Addiction
Karen Brown (‘13) spent two weeks in Norway and England, learning how those countries address gambling addiction through gambling regulation and considering these methods as potential models for the US. The trip was part of an international reporting fellowship from The Association of Health Care Journalists, an experience Brown said provided her with “a fascinating comparison of countries with very different attitudes towards government’s role in protecting its population.”
Elana Gordon (‘19) published a story in the Washington Post titled, “These people used Narcan to save lives. Here’s how they did it.” The unique format of the story was an opportunity for Gordon to “work across mediums with graphics in a way I hadn’t fathomed has been really really rewarding.” This story builds on Gordon’s research during her fellowship year, which included studying media portrayals of addiction.
For Your Bookshelf: from AI to Aliens
Karen Hao (‘22): “Empire of AI,” coming out in May, tells the inside story of OpenAI and uses it as a lens to ask the question: how should we govern AI, and importantly, who gets to govern it? It argues that AI companies have become empires in the full sense of the word, seizing resources, recklessly racing each other, projecting tantalizing ideas of modernity, controlling knowledge production, and dispossessing the majority, all ultimately to consolidate extraordinary power and wealth in the hands of the few. Interwoven within OpenAI’s story are the stories of blossoming movements of resistance around the world that show us it’s possible to redirect the course of AI development toward something more inclusive. During her KSJ fellowship, Hao worked on a four-part series called “AI Colonialism,” arguing that AI is recreating a colonial world order, a project the book draws heavily on.
David Baron (‘90): “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America,” will hit the shelves in August after seven years of writing and research. Baron describes this title as “a work of narrative nonfiction; it traces the people, events, and societal forces that spawned one of the strangest episodes in modern history—the “Mars craze” of the early twentieth century when the public came to believe that a dying civilization lived on the planet next door.” A tale of science and imagination, the book reveals how Mars came to occupy its unique place in our minds, our fiction, and our future. Baron shared, “When I began this project, I had no idea it would take so long, but it required a tremendous amount of archival research in collections scattered across the United States and Europe. One unexpected benefit: I came to learn about the history of American science journalism, as newspapers played a key role in driving the Mars craze to its fevered climax.”
Venkatesh Hariharan (‘99): “Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries: How the Global South and Emerging Power Alliances Are Reshaping Digital Governance,” published by Cambridge University Press includes a paper co-authored by Hariharan titled, “Digital Sovereignty and Payments: A Case Study of the National Payments Corporation of India.”
Reasons to Celebrate
Lindsay Gellman (‘21) was awarded a fellowship through Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Science Writing program and the Good Science Project to support investigative feature stories that examine where science goes wrong and how it can be improved. Lindsay’s project investigates unorthodox Alzheimer’s treatments.
Dyna Rochmyaningsih (‘24) will join the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science as their Journalist in Residence this September. Rochmyaningsih will spend two months in the Department for Knowledge Systems and Collective Life researching “Alternative Sources of Knowledge in the Age of Science Suppression.” She sees her work during the PWIG fellowship as an extension of her work at KSJ, “During my fellowship year at MIT, I learned that history and philosophy are deeply embedded in science … instead of focusing on the big questions like the Origins of Life, I am now putting my attention back to the urgently needed kind of journalism service: reporting on environmental crisis.”
Meera Subramanian (‘17) received a Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals, which she plans to use to promote the forthcoming book, “A Better World is Possible.” This nonfiction YA graphic novel about youth confronting the climate crisis was created in collaboration with illustrator Danica Novgorodoff.
Valeria Román (‘05) defended her thesis about communication and the use of untested interventions during global health emergencies and received a Master’s Degree in Bioethics at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Buenos Aires. Román says she uses the knowledge she gained while earning her degree in her daily work as a journalist, “I can find news, sources, and approaches that I did not consider before when communicating with my audiences.”
Jane Qiu (‘18) is set to speak at this year’s International Summit on Genome Editing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Decades of Dedication: Projects Celebrate 10 Years
Luke Timmerman (‘06) celebrated the ten-year anniversary of his independent biotech publication, Timmerman Report.
Dan Falk (‘12) and Amanda Gefter (‘13) marked the ten-year anniversary of their podcast “BookLab,” in which they review popular science books.
In the News
In addition to articles that alumni have sent to KSJ directly, this section includes a compendium by Federico Kukso (‘16) highlighting a global sample of reporting by KSJ alumni.
Christoph Drösser (‘94): “Brilliant Ears? The Demystification of Perfect Pitch,” in German, Deutschlandfunk.
Steve Nadis (’ 98): “Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe,” Quanta.
Ángela Posada-Swafford (‘01): “‘Sir’ Ernest Shackleton, the last ‘dragon slayer’,” in Spanish, El Tiempo.
Valeria Román (‘05): “Climate change: How Latin American cities need to prepare for more frequent heavy rains,” in Spanish, Infobae.
Dan Falk (‘12): “Why Quantum Matters: Discovering the science that makes modern tech possible,” Discover (cover story, print issue).
Yves Sciama (‘14): “Taking into account the longevity of animals to better protect biodiversity,” in French, Mediapart.
Giovana Girardi (‘15): “Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva: ‘Lula never pressured me to endorse oil exploration,’” Agência Pública.
Zack Colman (‘16), Ben Lefebvre, Kelsey Tamborrino, and James Bikales: “Trump admin considers killing big energy projects in Dem states,” Politico.
Federico Kukso (‘16): “Panzootic times: the ‘animal pandemic’ of avian flu that is spreading unchecked around the world,” in Spanish, Agencia SINC.
Iván Carrillo (‘17): “Return of the California condor,” Knowable.
Jane Qiu (‘18): “How to Stop the Next Viral Pandemic,” Scientific American.
Mico Tatalovic (‘18): “Galaksija: How a Yugoslav Socialist-Era Magazine Covered Science,” Alternator.
Tim De Chant (‘19): “Earth AI’s algorithms found critical minerals in places everyone else ignored,” TechCrunch.
Richard Fisher (‘20): “You Can Make Amber Fossils in 24 Hours, Instead of Millions of Years,” The New York Times.
Kai Kupferschmidt (‘24): “A year later, cow flu origins are an unsettling puzzle,” Science.
Justin O’Neill (‘24): “Giant pandas are returning to the National Zoo after a 15-month absence,” NPR Morning Edition.
Dyna Rochmyaningsih (‘24): “Indonesia’s new capital could become a hot spot for infectious diseases,” Science.
Peter Whoriskey (‘24): “Private equity firms consolidating homes for disabled,” The Washington Post.
More News: Shining a Light on the State of Science
Vivien Marx (‘98): “The Value of Lab Values,” Nature Methods.
Luke Timmerman (‘06): “Defend the NIH,” Timmerman Report.
Teresa Carr (‘18) and Margaret Manto: “In War Against DEI in Science, Researchers See Collateral Damage,” Undark.
Mico Tatalovic (‘18): “Importance of diversity for more inclusive science reporting: a case study,” European Federation for Science Journalism.
Wojciech Brzeziński (‘23) and Agata Kazmierska: “Donald Trump Gets Rid of Scientists. Because They’re Too Expensive and Leftist,” in Polish, Tygodnik Powszechny.
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