2007 Laureate Biographies
Clive Cookson has worked in science journalism for his whole professional life. He graduated Oxford University in 1974 with a first class honors degree in chemistry. After two years at the Luton Evening Post, he joined the Times Higher Education Supplement — first as science correspondent in London and then as American editor in Washington, D.C. Cookson returned to London in 1981 as technology correspondent of the Times. In 1983, he moved to BBC Radio as a science and medical correspondent. He went back to print journalism in 1987, when he joined his present newspaper, the Financial Times, as technology editor. He also has written about the chemical and pharmaceutical industries for the Financial Times, and, since 1991, has been the paper's science editor. He won Glaxo science journalism prizes in 1994 and 1998.
David Ewing Duncan is a journalist and author of six books, and a television and radio producer and correspondent. He is also the Director of the Center for Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley. He is the Chief Correspondent of NPR Talk’s Biotech Nation, and a commentator for NPR’s “Morning Edition”. Duncan is a Contributing Editor to Portfolio Magazine and writes the “Natural Selection” column for Portfolio.com. In He wrote the international bestseller Calendar: Humanity’s Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year (Harper-Collins/Avon), published in 19 languages. His most recent book is Masterminds: Genius, DNA and the Quest to Rewrite Life. He is at work on Experimental Man: A Molecular Autobiography. He has been a Contributing Editor to Wired, Discover, and MIT Technology Review. He has written for Life, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Fortune, USA Today, and others. Duncan was a special producer and correspondent for ABC’s Nightline; a producer for Discovery Television; and a correspondent for NOVA on PBS. Duncan has won numerous awards, including the prestigious AAAS Magazine Journalism award. He is the founder and editorial director of The BioAgenda Institute, an independent life science policy think-tank. He is a member of the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto. His other books include a narrative about a bicycle trek around the world; about a stint as a correspondent in Africa during the waning days of Apartheid; a biography of the conquistador Hernando de Soto; and an investigative report on how doctors are trained. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Joel Garreau is the author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – and What It Means to Be Human, published in 2005 by Doubleday. Joel is a reporter and editor at The Washington Post and principal of The Garreau Group, the network of his best sources committed to understanding who we are, how we got that way, and where we’re headed, worldwide. He has served as a senior fellow at the University of California at Berkeley and George Mason University, and is currrently a fellow at Oxford University's James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization. He is a member of Global Business Network, the pioneering scenario-planning organization. He is the troll of a small forest in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
Simon Grose co-edited Sydney University's student newspaper in 1974 and was a regular contributor to the Australian edition of Rolling Stone during the 1970s and '80s. After stints in television journalism and small business, he came to Canberra in 1988 to join the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's major publicly funded research organization. He later served as a ministerial media adviser in the portfolios of primary industry and resources, treasury, transport and communications, and trade. He has been the science and technology editor of The Canberra Times since 1994 and was computing editor from 1996 to 2002. He also is a writer for Australasian Science and produces a daily e-mail bulletin in the sciences, education and related areas as Science Media's correspondent in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Moira Gunn was labeled the "Grand Dame of Tech Talk" by Wired magazine. Gunn, a popular commentator on life in the technology age, is best known as the host of National Public Radio's "TechNation: Americans & Technology," as well as for a weekly column on Knight-Ridder's SiliconValley.com. On her weekly radio program, Gunn interviews technological innovators, as well as everyday people who are coping with the new wired world. Her guests have ranged from business leaders like Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos to political and cultural figures such as Sen. John McCain and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to top scientists and science writers, including Sir Francis Crick and Stephen Jay Gould. Gunn also is a frequent guest on CNN, ZDTV, and San Francisco's public television station KQED. She is regularly asked to speak on a range of topics, including the impact of cyberspace on society, economic opportunities on the Internet, and her experience as a woman in the fields of science and technology. A former NASA scientist and engineer, Gunn has served as a member of the Awards Selection Committee for the Space Technology Hall of Fame and is currently on the board of directors of the Tech Museum of Innovation. She holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Purdue University and a master's degree in computer science, as well as a technical patent in human nutrition.
Joan Leach earned her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh in the rhetoric of science program. She has taught science communication at Imperial College, University of London, the University of Pittsburgh, and now convenes the Science Communication Program at the University of Queensland in Australia. She is the editor of Social Epistemology and has been a contributing editor on a number of science and technology studies research collections. Her research interests include the rhetorical features of scientific arguments, knowledge mediation and mediators, and the interaction of audiences for science in new media environments. She is the author of Valuing Communication in Science and Science Mediated.
Nuala Moran is a freelance science journalist with more than 25 years of experience. She is the UK correspondent of BioWorld and senior editor of ScienceBusiness. She was formerly the managing editor of Nature and deputy editor of Computer Weekly. She also is a long-term contributor to the Financial Times, writing mainly on information technology. Moran has written for many other publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology.
Jeffrey R. Young is a writer and senior editor for The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he leads the paper's coverage of information technology. In his more than 10 years at The Chronicle, he has been involved with efforts to use new technology at the newspaper, most recently helping to create a blog on education technology. His freelance work has appeared in The New York Times and other publications. He earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a master's degree in communication, culture and technology from Georgetown University.
Peter Pockley is the former Australia and New Zealand correspondent for Nature magazine and contributes to a wide range of print and broadcast media on science issues. He is the founding director of the ABC's science unit and is currently a writer for Australasian Science magazine. With three and a half decades of involvement in the media, research and universities, Pockley is an experienced communicator to the public of science and technology. An independent writer and broadcaster, he is Australasian correspondent for Nature, senior writer and columnist for Australasian Science monthly, and a contributor to ABC, The Australian and Physics World. He is Australia's sole reporter specializing in science policy. Pockley is a council member of the National Science and Technology Centre (Questacon), Canberra; science writer in residence (visiting scholar) at the University of Sydney; and visiting fellow at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science in the Australian National University, where he runs courses in communication skills. In 1998, he was William Evans Visiting Fellow in the University of Otago, New Zealand. As part of Australia's Oral History Collection, Pockley recorded five interviews with eminent Australian scientists.
Jon Turney studied biochemistry and history of science and has worked as a journalist, civil servant academic, and publisher. He has been a science writer since the early 1980s, and was science editor, then features editor, for The Times Higher Education Supplement. Turney has devised science communication courses and taught at Birbeck and University College London, where he ended up as senior lecturer in science communication and head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies. He left UCL for a stint as an editorial director at Penguin Press in London, commissioning popular science books. Since 2004, he has concentrated on freelance writing for a wide range of clients and also leads a program in creative non-fiction writing at Imperial College London. Turney has published numerous book chapters, papers and essays on science and science communication, especially on ways of analyzing popular science text. He has written for New Scientist, The Guardian, Times, Independent, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, and New York Times. His current project is "The Rough Guide to the Future," to be published in the UK and United States in 2009. His books include the forthcoming "Dilemmas — Technology," "The Rough Guide to Genes and Cloning" (with Jess Buxton), "Engaging Science," "Science, Not Art: Ten Scientists' Diaries," "Lovelock and Gaia: Signs of Life," "A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems about Science" (edited with Maurice Riordan), and "Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture."
Jon Van has been a science reporter for the Chicago Tribune for more than 25 years and works to uncover and explain mysteries and miracles in the world of science and technology. He attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1966 and a master's degree in political science in 1968. For six years, he covered government for The Des Moines Register. In 1973, Van became a general assignment reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Four years later, when the science writer's position was open, he jumped at the chance. The science beat has given Van a front row seat to hot issues and cutting-edge developments in science and medicine, such as monitoring cholesterol, the invention of the MRI, shuttle launches, and AIDS. Lately, technology, computers, and telephony are his interests.
Glenn Zorpette, is executive editor of IEEE Spectrum, the flagship publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He first joined the staff in 1984 and worked at the magazine for almost 11 years. In 1993 he won a National Magazine Award for an article on Iraq's efforts to build an atomic bomb. Between 1995 and 2001, he worked at Scientific American and Red Herring magazines before rejoining Spectrum in June 2001. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1983 from Brown University and has been an IEEE member since August 2001. Zorpette is the author of "Scientific American: Andro Angst (Science and the Citizen)," "Scientific American: Extreme Sports, Sensation Seeking and the Brain," "Scientific American: Muscular Again," "Scientific American: The Mystery of Muscle," "Scientific American: Your Bionic Future," and others. He recently received the Grand Neal Award and also was recognized as the 13th recipient of the McAllister Editorial Fellowship.