I am a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and a member of the New York Times editorial board. I mostly cover public health, but I have also written about immigration, education, bioethics and health care policy. Before joining the Times full-time, I wrote for several national magazines, and authored one college textbook (introductory environmental science, for W.H. Freeman).
The stories I most love to tell involve people grappling with trauma and loss, or navigating the tension between love and obligation. My best work includes magazine features about: a gifted pre-school teacher living in poverty; a young soldier battling PTSD; parents struggling to care for a minimally conscious son; teachers trying to move on after a school shooting and mothers trying to regain custody of their children as they battle addiction. In 2012, I wrote a cover story about my own family’s efforts to care for my father during a manic episode. I still hear from families who are confronting the same struggle.
Before turning to journalism, I was a wandering scientist. I studied climate change in the Arctic, epigenetics in the immune system and behavioral conditioning in alcohol-addicted rats. I also formulated vaccines in a pharmaceutical lab. I have a B.A. in biology (from Rutgers University) and an M.A. in environmental science and M.S. in journalism (both from Columbia University). I have been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (2013), a Pulitzer traveling grantee (2014), and a Kaiser Global Health fellow (way back when).
I was born in Medellin, Colombia, adopted by Sicilian-Americans, and raised in Central New Jersey. I live in Manhattan with my husband and a cat who was originally named Isis but is now called Tiny.
I am represented by Jay Mandel of William Morris Endeavor, and currently at work on a book about my birth mother, my adoptive mother, and the myth of self invention.
photo credit: Elinor Carucci