Maggie Koerth

Last updated
Maggie Koerth
MaggieKoerth 20211105 538.jpg
Maggie Koerth, Nov 2021
Born1981 (age 4142)
Kansas, U.S.
Occupation
  • Author
  • Blogger
Notable works
  • Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us

Maggie Koerth (born 1981), formerly known as Maggie Koerth-Baker, is an American science journalist. She is a senior science editor at FiveThirtyEight and was previously a science editor at Boing Boing and a monthly columnist for The New York Times Magazine . Koerth is the author of the 2012 book Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us.

Contents

Background

Born in Kansas, Koerth lived in Minneapolis with her husband as of 2012. [1] Koerth studied journalism and anthropology at the University of Kansas. [2]

Career

In 2009, Koerth co-authored the book Be Amazing: Glow in the Dark, Control the Weather, Perform Your Own Surgery, Get Out of Jury Duty, Identify a Witch, Colonize a Nation, Impress a Girl, Make a Zombie, Start Your Own Religion with Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur, the co-founders of Mental Floss . [3] The book was described as "a tongue-in-cheek self-improvement guide". [3] Koerth was an assistant editor at Mental Floss . [4]

She later joined Boing Boing, where she specialized in science blogging and was known for her ability to explain science coherently and understandably while keeping it interesting. [5] [6] A piece Koerth wrote for Boing Boing in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster explaining nuclear power plant operations was featured in the anthology The Best Science Writing Online 2012. [7]

In June 2012, Koerth suffered a miscarriage. She wrote about her experiences with the social expectations and medical regulation surrounding abortions and miscarriage in a series of blog entries. [8] [9] [10]

Beginning in August 2012, Koerth wrote "Eureka", a monthly column for The New York Times about research of interest to the layperson at the intersection of science, technology, and culture. [11] [3] [12] She has also contributed to Discover , Popular Science , New Scientist , Scientific American , and National Geographic . [13] [3]

In 2012, Koerth published Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, a book about the complexity of energy systems in the United States, the roadblocks to change, and the possibility of doing things differently. [14]

In 2016, Koerth began working for FiveThirtyEight as a senior science editor. [15]

Awards

In June 2014, Koerth was named one of two Nieman-Berkman Fellows in journalism innovation at Harvard University. [16] In 2017, she won the American Meteorological Society's Award for Distinguished Science Journalism in the Atmospheric and Related Sciences. [17]

Carl Zimmer has called her "one of the most innovative science writers at work today." [13]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Atlantic</i> Magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C.

The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.

<i>The Mill on the Floss</i> Novel by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss is a novel by George Eliot, first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood and Sons. The first American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.

<i>Slate</i> (magazine) U.S.-based online magazine

Slate is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company, and since 2008 has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. Slate is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.

Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Carla Sinclair, and Rob Beschizza, and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas J. Futuyma</span> American evolutionary biologist

Douglas Joel Futuyma is an American evolutionary biologist. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York and a Research Associate on staff at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His research focuses on speciation and population biology. Futuyma is the author of a widely used undergraduate textbook on evolution and is also known for his work in public outreach, particularly in advocating against creationism.

<i>Mental Floss</i> American online magazine and media company

Mental Floss is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss.com, which presents facts, puzzles, and trivia with a humorous tone, draws 20.5 million unique users a month. Its YouTube channel produces three weekly series and has 1.3 million subscribers. In October 2015, Mental Floss teamed with the National Geographic Channel for its first televised special, Brain Surgery Live with mental_floss, the first brain surgery ever broadcast live.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doc Searls</span> American journalist, columnist, and blogger

David "Doc" Searls, is an American journalist, columnist, and a widely read blogger. He is the host of FLOSS Weekly, a free and open-source software (FLOSS) themed netcast from the TWiT Network, a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, author of The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge, Editor-in-Chief of Linux Journal, a fellow at the Center for Information Technology & Society (CITS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, an alumnus fellow (2006–2010) of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and co-host of the Reality 2.0 Podcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nieman Foundation for Journalism</span> Journalism institution at Harvard University

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is the primary journalism institution at Harvard.

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awards multiple types of fellowships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex S. Jones</span> American journalist (born 1946)

Alex S. Jones is an American journalist who was director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government from July 1, 2000 until June 2015. He won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Bazelon</span> American journalist

Emily Bazelon is an American journalist. She is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a senior research fellow at Yale Law School, and co-host of the Slate podcast Political Gabfest. She is a former senior editor of Slate. Her work as a writer focuses on law, women, and family issues. She has written two national bestsellers published by Penguin Random House: Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy (2013) and Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration (2019). Charged won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Current Interest category, and the 2020 Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. It was also the runner up for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia University and the Nieman Foundation, and a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism from the New York Public Library.

HealthNewsReview.org is a web-based project that rates the completeness, accuracy, and balance of news stories that include claims about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurie Penny</span> English journalist, columnist and author

Laurie Penny is a British journalist and writer. Penny has written articles for publications including The Guardian,The New York Times and Salon. Penny is a contributing editor at the New Statesman and the author of several books on feminism, and they have also written for American television shows including The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Nevers.

The Conversation is a network of not-for-profit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Copyright terms for images are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri, le Chat Noir</span> Web series known for its cat protagonist

Henri, le Chat Noir is a web series of short films on the existential musings of the cat Henri, written and directed by William Braden. Henri was portrayed by Henry (2003–2020), a male longhair tuxedo cat. Videos featuring Henri have been viewed millions of times, and have been featured by news outlets such as The Huffington Post and ABC News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alissa Quart</span> American nonfiction writer, critic, journalist, editor, and poet

Alissa Quart is an American nonfiction writer, critic, journalist, editor, and poet. Her nonfiction books are Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers and Rebels (2013), Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child (2007), Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003), Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America (2018), and Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream (2023); her poetry books are Monetized (2015) and Thoughts and Prayers (2019).

MuckRock is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which assists anyone in filing governmental requests for information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public record laws around the United States, then publishes the returned information on its website and encourages journalism around it.

Neena Betty Schwartz was an American endocrinologist and William Deering Professor of Endocrinology Emerita in the Department of Neurobiology at Northwestern University. She was best known for her work on female reproductive biology and the regulation of hormonal signaling pathways, particularly for the discovery of the signaling hormone inhibin. Schwartz was an active feminist advocate for women in science throughout her career; she was a founding member of the Association for Women in Science organization in 1971 and shared the founding presidency with Judith Pool. She also co-founded the Women in Endocrinology group under the auspices of the Endocrine Society, served terms as the president of the Endocrine Society and the Society for the Study of Reproduction, and was recognized for her exceptional mentorship of women scientists. In 2010, she published a memoir of her life in science, A Lab of My Own, in which she came out as lesbian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elle Reeve</span> American journalist (born c. 1982)

Elle Reeve is an American journalist and correspondent for CNN. She previously worked for HBO's Vice News Tonight, where she won a Peabody Award for her coverage of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Angwin</span> American investigative journalist

Julia Angwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and entrepreneur. She was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of technology on society. She was a senior reporter at ProPublica from 2014 to April 2018 and staff reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2013. Angwin is author of non-fiction books, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (2009) and Dragnet Nation (2014). She is a winner and two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

References

  1. Tom Vandyck (April 9, 2012). "Q&A with Maggie Koerth-Baker". Midwest Energy News. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  2. Frank Jossi (October 10, 2012). "Q&A: Author dissects issues with the electric grid". Finance & Commerce . Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Who is Maggie Koerth-Baker?". Archived from the original on 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2013-04-18.
  4. "Maggie Koerth-Baker". Society of Professional Journalists . Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  5. Kyle Niemeyer (April 7, 2012). "Why you should read the book Before the Lights Go Out". Ars Technica . Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  6. Alyssa Battistoni (May 5, 2012). "Boing Boing Editor Makes Energy Policy an Illuminating Read". Mother Jones . Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  7. Deborah Blum (September 18, 2012). "The Best Science Writing Online 2012". Knight Science Journalism. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  8. Koerth-Baker, Maggie (20 June 2012). "The only good abortion is my abortion". boingboing. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  9. Koerth-Baker, Maggie (23 July 2012). "My miscarriage, my abortion". boingboing. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  10. Koerth-Baker, Maggie (21 July 2012). "I don't deserve better healthcare than you". boingboing. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  11. Lindgren, Hugo (15 August 2012). "Introducing Maggie Koerth-Baker". New York Times. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
  12. Chris O'Shea (August 15, 2012). "Maggie Koerth-Baker Named Monthly Columnist for New York Times Magazine". Fishbowl NY. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  13. 1 2 Piper Klemm (May 1, 2012). "Piper Promotes: BSR Spring Seminar featuring Maggie Koerth-Baker, May 2, 2012". Berkeley Science Review. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  14. Maryn McKenna (July 15, 2012). "Superbug Summer Books: Before the Lights Go Out". Wired . Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  15. "Maggie Koerth-Baker". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 2016-04-10.
  16. "2015 Nieman-Berkman Fellows named". Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. June 30, 2014. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
  17. AGU (25 August 2017). "Honoring Earth and Space Scientists" . Retrieved 2018-03-06.