Our Staff

Eva began her career shooting DNA into plant cells and cloning retinal genes from fish. It just got better from there. A graduate of the UC Santa Cruz science writing program, she has explained science to cartoon writers for “The Magic School Bus” TV show, written articles about the wild corners of Oahu for the Honolulu Weekly, created scavenger hunts for preschoolers at the California Science Center and interviewed Nobel laureates at the University of Southern California. Before joining Knowable, she was editor in chief of Science News Magazine. She loves offering free medical advice.
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Rosie abandoned yeast and fruit-fly labs long ago for the UC Santa Cruz science writing program. At New Scientist, she learned how convenient it was to have bosses 5,437 miles away. At the LA Times, she wrote about everything from anthrax forensics to the digestive hazards of election debates during Thanksgiving dinners. As chief magazine editor at Nature, she rekindled her love of Marmite and confusion over proper spelling (these days, she just guesses). She likes hiking and old biological drawings, and is concocting plans to grow a loofah-sponge hedge.
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Lisa knows there’s great beauty in science and wants everyone else to know it, too. She moved to Philadelphia to attend Drexel University’s design program, and loved the city so much that she still calls it home. Before joining Knowable, she spent a decade designing and art-directing at the Scientist — learning, among other things, that the DNA double helix twists right-handedly, and how to source a good photograph of a dogged recluse. You can usually find her falling down in yoga class, or crafting the perfect iced tea.
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Rachel edits and writes stories, curates the Knowable Magazine newsletter and assists with special projects. Her first scientific love was botany, but she realized she liked writing about science more than doing science. For several years she was a staff writer at Science News, where she covered everything from pain genetics to fracking and wrote a column in which she explored hard-hitting questions such as whether parasitic worms are kosher and why we misremember movie quotes. Rachel was a 2013-14 Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and then a freelance writer before joining Knowable. She still loves plants, writes about them whenever possible and grows several in her Boston apartment.
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Katie manages social media, syndication and analytics for Knowable Magazine. In other words, she tweets for a living. Before joining Knowable, Katie cut her teeth on academic publishing at PLOS and then dove into the media start-up world at ATTN:, where she wrangled with hashtags, metatags and all-powerful algorithms. She can recite the first 20 elements on the periodic table, but only in song. A proud UC Berkeley alum and avid Cal Bears fan, her favorite elements are Berkelium and Californium. She strongly encourages everyone to like and share everything Knowable publishes.
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Phone: (650) 843-6658

Debbie discovered science writing by accident as a journalism undergraduate covering the work of University of Costa Rica scientists for the university’s newspaper. That led her to Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where she learned the basics of science writing, and to La Nación, Costa Rica’s leading newspaper; there, she created the paper’s first daily science section after completing a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship. Before joining Knowable, Debbie led the Spanish-language website of Scientific American and wrote, edited and translated texts for publications such as Investigación y Ciencia and the New York Times. Though snakes terrify her, the most interesting stories she’s written have been about venomous snakes. When she’s not writing or editing, you can probably find her in a circle doing Israeli dances.
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Betty loves nothing better than a good story, preferably filed punctually and punctuated in all the right places. A copy editor by nature and nurture, she has fact-checked, corrected and proofread news articles for US dailies such as the Los Angeles Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. As a magazine editor at Australia’s House & Garden and BBC Good Food, she gabbed about cooking, health and nutrition — in between deadlines — with anyone who would listen. She never misses breakfast, nor the opportunity to scan cereal boxes for typos.
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Growing up, Emily spent most of her summers guiding river trips — and still loves messing about in boats. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins science writing program, she’s been a staff neuroscience reporter at Science, where she wrote about everything from cyborg cockroaches to the ethics of deep brain stimulation, and a Rosalynn Carter Fellow, covering mental health in refugee communities. Emily’s freelance work has earned national recognition, including a mention in Best American Science Writing 2021. When she isn’t writing or editing stories for Knowable, she produces the magazine's live science events.
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James was born in Texas and grew up in a cabin in the woods. The son of two writers, he focused on studying biology in college before finally accepting his family destiny. As a writer, researcher and fact-checker, James has worked with outlets such as Discover Magazine, Pacific Standard, Undark and SciShow, helping others tell rock-solid science stories and uncovering some of his own, including how to massage Komodo dragons, why we haven't cloned any rhinos yet and the second life of illegal taxidermy. He now lives in Seattle and can provide sources for that statement.

Science isn’t too helpful if it operates in a vacuum, which is why Leslie loves teasing out stories that show how research is relevant to other parts of people’s lives. Since graduating with a master’s degree in science reporting from New York University, her interests have led her to write on everything from attempts to grow Covid-19 vaccines in tobacco plants to the tactics states are using to make more packaging recyclable. Leslie balances her freelance career with her love of dance and getting a good night’s sleep. Speaking of which: She sleeps best when her own reporting has been thoroughly fact-checked — so, hopefully, she will help Knowable writers rest more easily, too.

Clark’s accumulation of scientific credentials began and ended on the wintry fields of Auburn, Massachusetts, where he would ride his sled on the site from which Robert Goddard launched his first rocket. A stint as a classical music DJ and a newspaper job in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, did not prevent him from catching on at the Los Angeles Times, where he eventually became chief of copy desks. Still feeling like a New Englander, he has lived for many years in Sierra Madre, California, where he collects (and sometimes sells) unusual old books, adds to his shelf of recordings of Welsh male choruses, and throws tennis balls at the bears to chase them away from his trash cans.

Amber Dance has volunteered to be poked by pain researchers, tried very hard not to get in the way of a brain surgery and gotten as close as she could (not very close) to a high-security Biosafety Level 4 lab, all in the name of science journalism. After a PhD in cell and microbiology, she swore off pipetting, but still enjoys learning about teeny-tiny living things. She is an award-winning freelance science journalist and a graduate of the UC Santa Cruz science communication boot camp, and has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Nature, Science News, Scientific American and a host of even nerdier publications. She is assisted — or often as not, hindered — in her Southern California home office by two aggressively affectionate felines.

By the time Bob finished his PhD (in desert plant ecology), he knew he was happier learning about other people’s research than doing it himself. So he headed to California to take the UC Santa Cruz science writing program. After that, he spent 25 years at New Scientist magazine, where he wrote about everything from the origin of life to the future of the Amazon to the first credible AI music composition program. An avid cook — perhaps more enthusiastic than skilled — he especially enjoys writing about the science of food and flavor, and even wrote a book on the subject (cleverly titled Flavor).

Nicola was on an oceanographic cruise as an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia when she realized journalists also get to go on amazing trips but don't get stuck in the lab. She put down her beaker and picked up her pen. After a journalism master’s, Nicola worked for New Scientist and Nature in London. Now back in Canada, she freelances for Yale Environment 360, Hakai, Sapiens and more. Her journalism adventures include swimming in an exploding African lake, participating in astronaut training — and giving a TED talk.

Once upon a time, Katarina (“Katya”) was developing a machine-learning algorithm to identify bat species based on recordings of echolocation calls, but then realized she was too greedy to focus on one field of science. As a journalist, she has covered many fields of life science; today she mostly writes about the environment. Among other publications, she’s contributed to Scientific American, National Geographic, BBC Future and Undark. For Knowable Magazine, she has climbed in Swiss forests to learn how they respond to drought and sampled Napa Valley wines to investigate the flavor impacts of climate change — strictly in the name of science.