Andrew Whitacre
On May 17, our Graduate Program in Science Writing hosted its annual thesis presentation day, when students finishing up the one-year program read their culminating work: an article fit for publication in a major (usually general audience) science publication. Each year, we stream the presentations and post the final versions here. Our best wishes to this year’s students as they head out on their summer writing internships, with degrees conferred on Wednesday, September 18, and we hope you enjoy watching them present their work in the videos below.
Morning Session
- Eva Frederick, “Plague of Absence: Insect declines and the fate of ecosystems”
- Emily Makowski, “Mass Appeal: Saving the world’s bananas from a devastating fungus”
- Diego Arenas, “Minding the Empathy Gap: How insights into brains and behaviors are placating polarization”
- Devi Lockwood, “The Living Library: An indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon is combating climate change, deforestation, and loss of traditional knowledge by preserving their plants in the wild.”
Afternoon Session
- Emily Pontecorvo, “Navigating the 21st Century Without Vision: How the iPhone changed the landscape for assistive technology and fueled the movement fighting for digital accessibility”
- Gina Vitale, “Asbestos, USA: Ambler, Pennsylvania once thrived as the asbestos capital of the world — now it grapples with the waste that was left behind”
- Madeleine Turner, “Future Talk: The race to build a bot that gabs like a human”
- Brittany Flaherty, “The Conservation Sacrifice: Why New Zealand is willing to kill for its birds”
