I've always had a sweet spot for food. So do autophagic vacuoles, the sack-like organelles I studied in graduate school. These tiny cannibals like to chow down on proteins in their parent cells. I found that they also may regulate how our brain's neurons communicate with each other—a process that breaks down in degenerative diseases, like Parkinson's.

When I graduated, I decided to leave the vacuoles behind and do some communicating of my own. My penchant for writing science stories told me I was better at typing words than genotyping.

I spent the summer at the Los Angeles Times reporting about astronomy, neuroscience, transplant surgeries, paleontology, and, yes, food. The science intrigued me, but what fascinated me were the human stories behind the experiments. Those are the angles I want to reveal, to the people whose lives they affect.

School-year internships: Salinas Californian; Wired.com (news); Wired.com (social media)
Summer internship: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (Kaiser Family Foundation health reporting internship) 

Sarah Jane Keller

B.A. (biology, ecology concentration) University of Montana

M.S. (earth and planetary sciences) University of New Mexico

Curious students in the dusty far reaches of New Mexico called me the “hawk lady.” With a predatory bird on my arm, I described how food chains and watersheds work. In graduate school, a computer replaced my bird-nerd persona and my field biologist’s boots. My community, like those I had visited in Peru and Mexico, depended on mountain water sources. I was drawn to studying trends in the southwestern U.S. snowpack, a field rife with weighty implications—and controversies.

In time, I decided that showing raptors to kids, or revealing the difference between weather and climate to friends and family, had more personal and public impact than yet another paper in peer review. Instead of adding more results to the specialized literature, I will gladly spread science stories to the far-flung reaches of public discourse.

School-year internships: Stanford University News Service; Salinas Californian; Wired.com
Summer internship: Los Alamos National Laboratory

  

Tanya Lewis

Sc.B. (biomedical engineering) Brown University

When I think about my ideal career, I think of the Horse Whisperer. No, I don’t want to lead a reclusive life communing with animals. But I do want to serve as interpreter for a group of creatures most people don’t understand. I am talking, of course, about scientists.

I grew up on the slopes of Mauna Kea on Hawai’i, in view of the world's largest telescopes. But in college and later at a German research lab I set my sights inward, on technology that decodes brain signals. One day, this may help people with paralysis regain mobility. It’s the closest we’ve come to psychokinesis, and dry scientific prose doesn’t do it justice. I want to furnish such science with the rich narrative it deserves. I’m no Horse Whisperer, but soon I’ll be the Nerd Interpreter.

School-year internships: Stanford Medical School news office; Santa Cruz Sentinel; SETI Institute "Big Picture Science" radio program
Summer internship: Wired.com (San Francisco) 

 

Erin Loury

B.S. (biology, minor: English) University of California, Davis

M.S. (marine science) California State University/Moss Landing Marine Laboratories 

My designs on becoming a writer started in the third grade, after hearing my teacher read one of my stories to the class. I was exhilarated; my words had taken on life, like the books I read so insatiably.

I kept finding ways to write as I pursued my love of nature by studying the ocean as a marine biologist. Between catching fish in protected areas at sea and studying their stomach contents in the lab, I created a blog for my graduate school. We used it to transport readers into the world of marine scientists, to showcase the diversity of ocean creatures and the challenges they face.

Writing about science helps me interlace two distinct parts of myself: the curiosity and discovery that tantalize my mind, and the artistry and creativity that captivate my heart.

School-year internships: Monterey County Herald; Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute news office; ScienceNOW
Summer internship: Los Angeles Times (Kaiser Family Foundation health reporting internship) 

  

Beth Marie Mole

B.S. (biology and ethnomusicology) The College of William and Mary

Ph.D. (microbiology) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

When I was an undergraduate, it was how bacteria in our gut teach us about our ancestors. As an environmental camp teacher, it was field trips to wastewater treatment plants to watch microbes transform goopy sewage into clean water. In graduate school, it was a bacterium that quick-changes from a halcyon detritus grazer to a ruthless plant assassin. And after my doctorate, it was bacteria that defeat antibiotics.

I loved it—all the fascinating its of the natural world. For years they were microbes and their adaptations, but now they’re global public-health issues and compelling interdisciplinary challenges—how geographers improve vaccines, what grasses reveal about the spread of malaria. Their endless possibilities led me from the bench to the writing world. I love sharing them as much as exploring them—the next its.

School-year internships: Salinas Californian; Stanford Medical School news office; San Jose Mercury News
Summer internship: Chronicle of Higher Education (Washington, D.C.) 

 

Meghan D. Rosen

B.S. (biology) Northern Arizona University

Ph.D. (biochemistry and molecular biology) University of California, Davis

Most people take years to decide on a career, but I had mine picked out in second grade. When I grew up, I was going to become a professional juror. Listening to people’s stories, examining evidence, untangling truth from fiction—it sounded like the perfect job. There was only one catch: My ideal profession didn’t actually exist. 

My dissertation work nearly satisfied my childhood dream. I got to ask probing questions (Can mutant thyroid hormone receptors nudge a cell towards malignancy? How?) and share the answers. (We think so. They tinker with its genes.) But the molecular nitty-gritty of research was missing something I cared about: people. 

Now, through writing about science, I get to sort out a story’s facts and meet its characters. I think my second-grade self would approve.

School-year internships: Santa Cruz Sentinel; KUSP public radio; Multiple Sclerosis Discovery Forum
Summer internship: Science News (Washington, D.C.) 

   

Helen H. Shen

B.S. (biology, minor: psychology) Stanford University

Ph.D. (neuroscience) University of California, San Francisco

The brain can do a lot in 250 milliseconds. Simply reaching for a morning coffee requires signals so complex that I still haven’t cracked the code, even after seven years of trying.

I entered neuroscience research hoping to learn how electrical impulses in our heads define us as humans. Staring at the data, however, I realized it would take several lifetimes to explain arm movements, to say nothing of artistic expression.

Science writing became my refuge, allowing me to explore the scientific world at an accelerated pace. This summer, at the Philadelphia Inquirer, I jumped at the chance to cover multiple topics each day, sometimes reporting on organ donation in the morning and nanotechnology in the afternoon. These days, my next great story idea feels like it’s just fractions of a second away.

School-year internships: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory news office; San Jose Mercury News; Nature
Summer internship: Boston Globe (Kaiser Family Foundation health reporting internship)

Stephen Tung

B.S. (mechanical engineering) Cornell University

I love engineering. I designed banks from Legos and air motors from aluminum, my mind always gravitating toward combining smaller parts into something bigger that worked.

My ideas have remained grounded in the functional, but my medium has now changed. Plastic toys and metal have become web code and words. My previous creations connected form to function, but my new ones will connect curiosity to knowledge.

With these tools, I imagine forums for scientists to connect directly with the public, interactive websites that convey how research fits into the larger body of knowledge, and customizing content to give readers exactly the level of detail they want. That's a new design in science communication. I want to be part of it.

School-year internships: Monterey County Herald; Stanford University News Service; San Jose Mercury News
Summer internship: U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (Walnut Creek, CA)

  

Amy E. West

B.S. (marine biology) University of the Virgin Islands

M.Sc. (marine science) University of Otago, New Zealand

I did everything against the grain. I left a landlocked state to study the ocean, joined Peace Corps to live among cannibals, moved to New Zealand for graduate school without first being accepted, and racked up research experience worldwide in subjects ranging from sifters (phytoplankton) to drifters (whales) without climbing any career ladder. I was astonished I could thrive in any research environment, yet be overlooked professionally because of my diverse interests. 

Obviously, I couldn’t play the role of conventional scientist. Nor did I want to. 

Instead, I envisioned channeling Sylvia Earle, Jacques Cousteau, and Rachel Carson collectively to publicly demonstrate the relevance of marine science. Unsolicited written stories, videos, and even hand gestures had been my tools. I’ve now discovered a more formal approach to communicating science and a way to go with the grain.

School-year internships: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute news office; Monterey County Herald; KUSP public radio
Summer internship: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, San Francisco (video)