Science Stories with New York Times Journalist Apoorva Mandavilli
Presented on: Thursday, October 22nd 2020 at 7:00 PM EDT
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Science Stories: A Science Communication Speaker Series
is a partnership between The School of Interdisciplinary Science and the McMaster Alumni Association. The goal of the series is to showcase the important role of science writers, illustrators and photojournalists in society. This role is especially important at a time when so much of our media coverage centers on science topics.
This fall, we welcome guest speaker Apoorva Mandavilli, an award-winning science and global health reporter with The New York Times. In this online talk, Apoorva will discuss how she tells stories involving complex scientific concepts so that they resonate with all readers, not just those with a science degree. She will talk about her coverage of COVID-19 for The Times, her work at Spectrum and The Atlantic, and her efforts to build diversity in science journalism.
About our speaker:
Apoorva Mandavilli is a health and science reporter at The New York Times, where she writes mostly about infectious diseases.
The 2019 winner of the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Reporting, Apoorva has also written for The Atlantic, The New Yorker online, Slate, Nature, Scientific American and others.
She was the Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the autism news site Spectrum from its launch in 2008 through May 2020. With her colleague Nidhi Subbaraman, she launched Culture Dish, a non-profit dedicated to enhancing diversity in science journalism. For four years, she also served as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Science Health and Environmental Reporting Program.
Apoorva is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, where she was a founding co-chair of the diversity committee, and a member of the program committee for the 2016 World Conference of Science Journalists. She was the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s science writer in residence for spring 2019.