Writing

​​

I harness the power of storytelling to provide analysis and commentary on math, science, technology, and higher education. Some of my stories combine two or more of these topics. Here are selected examples:    ​

​​

Quanta Magazine:

• The AI Pioneer With Provocative Plans for Humanity

• The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See ​​

• The NASA Engineer Who's a Mathematician at Heart

• Math of the Penguins   

• The Computer Scientist Who Can't Stop Telling Stories (a top-5 most-read Quanta article of the year)

• Mathematicians Will Never Stop Proving the Prime Number Theorem

• To Boldly Go Where No Internet Protocol Has Gone Before (republished in Scientific American)

• Cryptography Pioneer Seeks Secure Elections the Low-Tech Way

• Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer

• ​The Architect of Modern Algorithms

• Click here to see all of my stories at Quanta.​

​​

The Atlantic

• Penguins Are Nature's Best Snugglers

​

Washington Post

• Why Researchers Are 100 Percent Sure We Love Round Numbers

​​​

WIRED magazine:

• A 'Godfather of AI' Calls for an Organization to Defend Humanity 

• Radioactive Snakes May Monitor Fukushima Fallout

​

BBC Science Focus

• The Seasons of Your Body: How Health-tracking Tech Will Change How We Approach Medicine

​

Scientific American

• The 'Father of the Internet' is Building an Interplanetary Internet (Italian edition) 

• Voronoi Tessellations and Scutoids Are Everywhere: So What Are They, Anyway?

​

​​Boston Globe: 

• ​Six reasons why $90,000 college costs are bad news even if few pay that amount 

​​​

Notices of the American Mathematical Society 

• Some colleges with vulnerable students cull math programs 

• Machine-Human collaborations accelerate math research

​

Literary Hub

• Why Do Some Mathematicians Think That They're Poets?

​

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an editorially independent magazine at the University of Chicago founded by Albert Einstein, where I've published more than 50 stories.

• Ukrainian Journalist Illia Ponomarenko on the horror and absurdity of Russia's senseless, existential war 

• AI godfather' Yoshua Bengio: We need a humanity defense organization

• Do scientists need an AI Hippocratic oath?

• DeepMind's David Silver on games, beauty, and AI's potential to avert human-made disasters

• How to talk with your kids about the war in Ukraine

• Illia Ponomarenko: Ukraine's most-followed war journalist is a 'dude' from Donbas

• Will Putin go nuclear?

• Kateryna Pavlova battled a pandemic, wildfires, corruption, and sexism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

• Satellites and climate change threaten the night. This October meteor shower celebrates it.

• Click  here to view all of my stories at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

​

Inside Higher Ed, where three of my stories ranked in the top 10 most-read stories for 2023. (See stories #4, #7, and #10 here.) I've written more than 100 stories for Inside Higher Ed. Here are some:

​

• African technology students, bolstered by ‘grassroots AI.’ 

• AI has a language diversity problem. Humans do, too. 

• Machines can craft essays. How should writing be taught now?

• AI Raises complicated questions about authorship 

• How AI writing tools both help and hinder equity

• College in the metaverse is here. Is higher ed ready?

• Computer science's challenges, as seen by its pioneers

• Facial recognition heads to class. Will students benefit?

• Colleges race to hire and build amid 'AI goldrush'

• University of California System bans fully online degrees

• Vermont State University’s ‘all-digital’ library fiasco

• ChatGPT sparks debate on how to design assignments now

• AI writing detection: A losing battle worth fighting

• Amid backlash, Stanford pulls 'harmful language' list

• Publisher blocks access to e-books; scrambling fall classes

• ​Click here to view all of my technology stories at Inside Higher Ed.​

 

Times Higher Education

• 'Outdated Views' Blamed as California System Bans Online Degrees

• Dian Fossey’s Unconventional Methods Hinted at the Importance of Women’s Perspective in Intellectual Pursuits

• You Can’t Cure Students’ Ills By Typing on Your Computer

 

Chronicle of Higher Education

• Sharing Math’s Appeal with First-Generation Students 

• The Outlier Who Wasn’t 

• Why Would a Mathematician Want an MFA?

 

Undark Magazine

• When an FDA Ruling Drastically Curbed Fecal Transplants, I Performed My Own 

• Undark Episode 33: Part 3 - Surviving C. diff. Podcast 

​​

Financial Times

• America's Students Should Take the Less Indebted Path​

​

Nature

• Why You Should Join a Journal's Editorial Board ​​

 

Ms. magazine

• Hidden Figures in Math

​​

Slate

• Why Have So Few Women Won the Most Important Award in Computing?

​​

National Association of Science Writers

• When Ideology or Special Interests Hijack Science Topics

 

Discover 

• How Will COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Apps Work in the US? 

​

WBUR - Boston's National Public Radio

• September 11 Helped Us Discover a Small Dream

​

 

My freelance science and education articles in a variety of publications: 

​

Maths Can Help You Thrive During the COVID-19 Pandemic | Oxford University Press Blog

​

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum: Inspiring the Next Generation of Mathematicians and Computer Scientists | Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons magazine

​

​A Textbook Case of Questionable Ethics | American Association of University Professors’ Academe

​​​

Reevaluating Teaching Evaluations | American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Liberal Education

​

Every Minute of Your Life Has Been Interesting | Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

​

An EDGE in Mathematics for Women: The Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Program | Book chapter in Women in Mathematics: Celebrating the Centennial of the Mathematical Association of America

​​​

To Fall in Love With Math, Do This | Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

​​

Thinking About Tipping Points | National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Mathematics Teacher

​​​​​

​Dinosaurs Dig Paleontologists Who Do Math | Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons

​​​​

​Facebook and Texting vs. Textbooks and Faces | Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons

​​

A (Mostly) Unwired Mathematics Classroom | Mathematical Association of America Focus

​

​

Reports:

From 2014 - 2017, I served as an appointed member of New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Task Force, during which I contributed to multiple reports every year and regularly spoke on behalf of the governor at press conferences and other state, national, and international conferences. Selected reports:  

​

Implementing Pathways to STEM Excellence: Inspiring Students, Empowering Teachers and Raising Standards – First Annual Report to Her Excellency Margaret Wood Hassan, Governor, State of New Hampshire | Office of the New Hampshire Governor

​

Pathways to STEM Excellence: Inspiring Students, Empowering Teachers and Raising Standards – Final Report to Her Excellency Margaret Wood Hassan, Governor, State of New Hampshire | Office of the New Hampshire Governor

​

​

Book Reviews

​

"Mathematical Tools for Data Mining: Set Theory, Partial Orders, Combinatorics, Second Edition by Dan A Simovici and Chabane Djeraba” | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

​

“Mathematical Demography, Selected Papers, 2nd Revised Edition, by David P. Smith and Nathan Keyfitz, Edited by Kenneth W Wachter and Herve Le Bras” | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

​

“In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart” | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

​

"Calculus: An Active Approach with Projects by Hilbert, Schwartz, Seltzer, Maceli, and Robinson" | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

 

“Quantify! A Crash Course in Smart Thinking by Göran Grimvall” | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

 

“Linear Models in Statistics by NH Bingham and John M Fry” | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

 

“Networks: An Introduction by MEJ Newman" | Mathematical Association of America Book Reviews

​