American science writer and journalist
Amy Maxmen (born 1978) is an American science journalist who writes about evolution, medicine, science policy and scientists. She was awarded the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting for her coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other awards for her reporting on Ebola and malaria.
Early life and education.
Maxmen was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in biology and English. She moved to the East Coast of the United States for graduate studies, where she received a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard University. Her doctoral research, published in the journal "Nature", suggested that sea spiders belong to an early lineage of arthropods and that their claws may be similar to the 'great appendages' seen in fossils dating back to the Cambrian explosion.
Research and career.
Maxmen is a popular science journalist. She has been a reporter at "Science News" and "Nature" and an editor at "Nautilus Quarterly". Her articles have also appeared in publications including the "New York Times" and "National Geographic". She writes about issues related to evolutionary biology, health technology, science policy and medicine. In 2015, Maxmen wrote about the origins of humanity. The article, which featured in "Nautilus Quarterly", was part of "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" in 2015. During Ebola virus epidemics, Maxmen reported from Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Maxmen was part of the 2020 cohort of the Knight Science Journalism fellows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a 2022-2023 press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Maxmen has been regularly featured on the "Nature" podcast, the "CoronaPod".
References.
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