A science and medical journalist by training, I’m the award-winning author of four books: Information Crisis: How a Better Understanding of Science Can Help Us Face the Greatest Problems of Our Time (2024), Equus Rising: How the Horse Shaped U.S. History, Documenting Your World Through Photography, and Untangling the Self-Publishing Process.

I love delving into just about any subject and figuring out how to bring it to life. My writing has appeared in numerous publications over the last two decades, covering everything from the relationship between altitude and low birth weight, to the Comanche’s role in the settlement of the Great Plains, to our nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response. (You can read a few favorite pieces here.) 

As the founding editor and publisher at Hill Press, I find reward in helping other authors present their work to the world, as well.

I’m science minded. Science matters, and I can’t stay quiet about it. I love translating research into digestible language for non-scientists to read, especially in the realms of public health, animal behavior, and climate and environmental sciences. I develop thought leadership for organizations that address issues of scientific or social concern, too.

Visual arts also call to me. I’m a documentary-style photographer and ran a small business for eight years called Calm Cradle Photo & Design. My personal craft projects have a way of growing out of control. (An attempt to learn weaving, for example, morphed into the acquisition of multiple looms, yarn-collecting expeditions to local llama and sheep farms, and the production of numerous pieces to redecorate the house.)

I spend most of my free time outdoors. Hike, bike, kayak, repeat. I’ve also got a bad case of wanderlust that’s taken me all over the world: roaming around inside an active volcano in the Galápagos Islands, trekking through the Indian Himalayas to the source of the Ganges River, and living in a tent in a remote nature reserve in Madagascar studying lemurs.

These globetrotting desires coexist, though, with a love for the pleasures of home. My operations base for work and life is the back porch of our house in the woods outside of Chapel Hill, NC.

I earned a bachelor’s in French from Duke University and a master’s from the Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (I met my husband, Jeff, in graduate school, which means I got an editor-for-life out of the deal.)

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a documentarian is that everyone has an interesting story to tell; you just have to observe keenly enough and listen well enough to understand it. Honing these skills has helped me to produce what I hope is perspective-altering work. 

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