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Science Writing at UC Santa Cruz Class of 2009 |
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Cassandra Brooks B.S. (biology) Bates College M.S. (marine science) California State University/Moss
Landing Marine Laboratories I grew up in New Hampshire, spending my days in the forest and
down by the river. At age five, when I started school, I couldn't wait to
finish high school so that I could go back to playing outside all day. In
college and graduate school, I gravitated toward the biological sciences as a
way to play outside professionally, in places such as Monterey Bay and
Antarctica.
I thrive on the thrill of discovering the natural world, but I
love sharing my discoveries just as much. Like exploring a tide pool and
brushing aside the seaweed for my sisters to see what's below, I use science
journalism as a lens into the realm of science for the public to look
through. Come along with me and experience the joys of looking under every
rock.
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Lizzie Buchen B.A. (biology), B.A. (psychology) Tufts University M.S. (neuroscience) University of California, San Francisco "You're interested in everything." I've heard these
words many times—from my proud father, weary teachers, and incredulous
peers. Recently, the words also came from my lamenting Ph.D. advisor, his
head shaking with disappointment. After changing my thesis project for the
fifth time in two years, reinvigorated by a fresh puzzle in neuroscience, I
realized I was in graduate school under an erroneous assumption. I thought
UCSF wanted to pay me to explore the brain and cogitate on the mind for seven
years. In reality, they expected me to toil at the bench to generate new
knowledge, datum by trifling datum. Writing liberated me from this indentured servitude. Now that I
devote myself to understanding and communicating the mysteries of the natural
world, I am thrilled that my insatiable curiosity will never again be a
burden. *** |
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Lisa Grossman B.A. (astronomy) Cornell University When I was eight years old, my imagination was abducted by aliens, and I never quite managed to recover it. Consequently, I spent my adolescence devouring science fiction. When I read Carl Sagan's Contact, I recognized my future self in its heroine, Ellie Arroway: I was going to be an alien hunter. I could imagine doing nothing else. So it came as a life-jarring shock when, while studying Martian soil composition, I realized that the once-stunning landscapes of the Red Planet had started to look like mere dirt. I'm turning to science writing to preserve my childlike joy in science, and to spread that joy as far as it will go. Rather than striving to be Ellie Arroway, I can aim to be Sagan himself and to inspire other little girls to be Ellies. *** |
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Hadley Leggett B.A. (biochemistry and Spanish) Rice University M.D., University of California, San Francisco A generous soul might label my path to science writing
"indirect." Others might call it crazy. Indeed, why would any sane person
spend four years in medical school, enduring sleep-deprived call nights and
endless hours of studying, only to retire her stethoscope upon graduation?
I could plead insanity, or I could tell the truth. I found
medicine fascinating, challenging, at times even exhilarating, but writing
has always been my secret dream, the impractical aspiration I never quite let
myself consider. In science writing, I've discovered my middle path: enough
writing to fulfill my creative spirit, enough science to satisfy my curious
brain. My pen won't touch a prescription pad any time soon, but beyond the
hospital walls, I look forward to blank pages and open spaces.
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Stephanie Pappas B.A. (psychology) University of South Carolina I made my way to California incrementally, hop-skipping from the sand hills of South Carolina to the thin-aired Rockies, and finally alighting in the redwood forests of Santa Cruz. My journey into science writing has been much the same. I rebelled against crunching numbers in a neuroscience lab; instead, I spent valuable data-gathering time listening to the life stories of our study participants. Concluding that I was more interested in people than in science, I landed in education. I taught children with autism, but I found that I wanted to know how their brains worked. My mistake was in believing that science and people occupy separate spheres. Science writing is my way of exploring both. And whether I find myself in South Carolina or Santa Cruz, I know there will be stories to tell. *** |
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Emmanuel Romero B.S. (biology, with honors) San Francisco State University Writing about science makes me feel like Dick York from a
famous episode of The Twilight Zone.
We both flipped a coin that landed on neither heads nor tails. Am I a scientist? A creative writer? I came close to an answer in my community theater
in San Francisco. There, the two joined in unholy matrimony—I wrote a
futuristic play about robotic boyfriends (translation: love slaves). People
laughed, cried, and learned that isotopes are natural variations of the same
element differing in atomic mass. I'm now a writer, but I'll never stop being a scientist. I
researched infectious blindness in Ethiopia, and I manufactured biochemical
reagents. I worked at the cutting edge, but I'd rather educate people on how
deeply that edge penetrates. I also hope to become telepathic, just like Dick York. *** |
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Kayvon Sharghi B.S. (biochemistry) CalPoly San Luis Obispo Certificate (editing) University of Washington Before graduating from university with a science degree, I
received the best advice of my life: "You should be a writer." That didn't
come from any adviser; it came from a Nobel laureate. The funny thing is that
I was interviewing the chemistry Nobelist on camera when he said it. Nothing
was mentioned of my potential to be the next Charlie Rose, but he saw in me
something else I had always wanted to become.
With his encouragement, I abandoned the lab and continued my
foray into multimedia. I have found that it works hand-in-hand with writing
to create memorable pieces that help people understand science in a way
that's impossible through words alone. So whether in written or recorded
form, whether photographed or podcasted, I hope to make science a part of our
lives.
*** |
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Michael M. Torrice S.B. (chemistry) Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. (chemistry) California Institute of Technology Long before I encountered a distillation set-up or a pipette, I read a thin hot-pink book, How to Think Like a Scientist. Fixated on the title, I absorbed this introduction to the scientific method—the path that scientists follow from question to conclusion. Many thicker dull-colored books later, I was at a lab bench studying proteins in the brain that translate the chemical chatter of our thoughts. Although the science fascinated me, I enjoyed the last step of the scientific method the most: communicating results. From discussing my own data to explaining discoveries by other scientists, I had found the thrill of science writing. Now I'm leaving the lab and learning to think like a journalist—without the help of neon-colored books. ***
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Michael Wall B.S. (ecology and evolutionary biology) University of
Arizona B.A. (history) University of Arizona Ph.D. (evolutionary biology) University of Sydney "If they don't have legs, how come they're not snakes?" I get
that question a lot when telling people about my Ph.D. research on Australian
legless lizards. When I explain that it's all about ancestry—that
snakes are merely the most successful of many lizard lineages to have evolved
limbless, elongated bodies—people's eyes usually widen. Evolution is a
strange and wonderful thing.
An ignorance of reptilian phylogeny is no badge of shame. But
the scientific illiteracy afflicting this country is serious, and I want to
help combat it. After working for years as a biologist, struggling to
reconcile my scientific and artistic natures, I now realize that my heart is
in communicating science. In my reporting about the natural world, I intend
to widen many more eyes in surprise and appreciation. *** |
