Have you ever had to write about diseases, forests, space, renewable energy, or heaven forbid, the “God” particle? Are you a reporter who’s tried talking to scientists and felt you were on the planet Mars? Are you a scientist who thinks reporters have the mental capacity of slugs and just can’t grasp complicated ideas? Most journalists at one time or another write stories that involve science, even if they don’t realize it. Getting the science and technology facts correct is vital to providing reliable information to the public.
Join four scientists and four science reporters as they offer first-hand stories and tips on what works and what doesn’t when reporting on science. The event is Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the TVC McCorkle Conference Center, 1155 University Blvd. Light refreshments being at 5 p.m. The panel discussion begins at 6 p.m. Seating is limited. The cost is $5 for members and $15 for non-members, with all proceeds helping the chapter provide a variety of free workshops to the public throughout the year. To register, email Julie Ann Grimm at jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.
The panelists represent different scientific fields and various media. A little bit about them follows:
Dr. Charles Wiggins
Dr. Charles Wiggins is director and principal investigator of the New Mexico Tumor Registry and associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the UNM School of Medicine. (His students say he makes a painful class thoroughly enjoyable!). Dr. Wiggins has more than 30 years of experience in cancer surveillance and epidemiology and a strong interest in cancer among underserved populations. He has studied cancer surveillance methods among American Indian communities and found errors in how they were classified in central cancer studies. He has coordinated epidemiology and biostatistics instruction for UNM medical school students since 2006.
Laura Paskus
Laura Paskus is an independent writer and editor who also reports and produces radio stories for the Conservation Beat on KUNM 89.9. She has been covering water, climate change, wildlife, environmental justice, and energy in New Mexico since 2002, when she started working as assistant editor at High Country News. Paskus also writes a regular column about local environmental issues for the Santa Fe Reporter; covers water issues for Environmental Flows Bulletin, a publication of the UNM School of Law’s Utton Center; and is managing editor of Tribal College Journal. Before becoming a journalist, she worked for six years as an archaeologist and tribal consultant. Her work can be found online at http://southwestreporter.com/
Geoff Reeves
Geoff Reeves is a senior scientist in the Space Science and Applications group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Reeves has studied the space environment, its effects on satellites, and the applications to national security. He is an expert in Space Weather – the field that studies how solar activity produces changes in the Van Allen radiation belts and near-Earth space environment. He has been a major contributor to both NASA and national security space missions.
George Johnson
George Johnson has written about science for the New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, Slate, Scientific American, Wired, The Atlantic, and other publications. His most recent book, “The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments,” is being translated into 15 languages. He is the author of nine books, including “Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order” and “Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics.” Both were finalists for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. His latest book, “The Cancer Chronicles,” will be published in 2013. A winner of the AAAS Science Journalism Award, he is co-director of the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop and a former Alicia Patterson fellow. A graduate of the University of New Mexico and American University, his first reporting job was covering the police beat for the Albuquerque Journal. He lives in Santa Fe and can be found on the Web at talaya.net.
Harshini Mukundan
Harshini Mukundan is a biomedical scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, researching and developing biosensors and diagnostic tests for pathogens. She is currently a member of the Physical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy group working on new diagnostics for STEC, a virulent type of E. Coli bacteria, and on tuberculosis biomarkers. Mukundan also is a mentor to post-doctoral students and a chemistry division bio-safety specialist. In 2011 she received a LANL Technology Transfer Award for her work in developing biosensors for detecting disease-related biomarkers and was named a Fellow of the Laboratory Consortium.
John Fleck
John Fleck has been a journalist since he could drink legally, and has written about science and related topics for the Albuquerque Journal since 1990. He’s a media fellow and contributing editor at Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West. His specialty is water science, politics and policy. He’s won the NMAP Managing Editors Science Award so many times they’re going to rename it the Fleck Award.
Greg Nielson
Dr. Gregory T. Nielson is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. At MIT he studied optical micro and nanosystems under an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and developed the first fully integrated wavelength selective optical MEMS switch. (Micro-electromechanical systems). In 2004, he came to Sandia as a Truman Fellow and demonstrated world record MEMS micromirror switching times of 225 nanoseconds. He has been leading the award-winning “Microsystem-enabled Photovoltaic” project at Sandia for the last six years which has been recognized with an R&D 100 Award. He is an author on more than 40 peer-reviewed technical publications and an inventor on 10 patents and 12 pending patent applications.
Jim Danneskiold
Jim Danneskiold has been manager of media relations and employee communications at Sandia National Laboratories since December 2010. He was a senior public information specialist at Los Alamos National Lab for 16 years, specializing in nuclear weapons, and chief of staff for LANL’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Division for four years. Before that, he covered Santa Fe politics for the Albuquerque Journal and was Chama Valley Bureau chief and then managing editor of the Rio Grande Sun in Española.
Come join us for a stimulating and educational evening!