Curriculum
In Environmental and Science Journalism: Courses Faculty Careers Events
Environmental and Science Journalism Faculty and Lecturers
Faculty
Michael Pollan (Professor)
Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." His previous book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals", was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, the James Beard Award for best food writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World", "A Place of My Own", and "Second Nature". A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Pollan is the recipient of numerous journalistic awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003 and the Reuters-I.U.C.N. 2000 Global Award for Environmental Journalism. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, Best American Essays and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harper's Magazine and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley.
Lecturers
Edwin Dobb (Lecturer)
A former editor and acting editor-in-chief of The Sciences, Edwin Dobb has been an independent writer for the past 20 years, contributing to Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic, among others. Dobb is the co-writer and co-producer of a documentary film, called “Butte, America,” that aired on Independent Lens in the fall of 2009. He is a former Hewlett Teaching Fellow in Environmental Journalism and member of the Editing Workshops. Dobb also is an adjunct professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana.
David Tuller (Visiting Lecturer) David Tuller was a reporter and editor for ten years at the San Francisco Chronicle. He served as health editor at Salon.com and frequently writes health stories for the New York Times. He received his masters in public health at Berkeley in 2005. Katherine Griffin (deputy editor)
Katherine Griffin (MJ 88) is managing editor of Yoga Journal magazine. She‚s held senior editorial positions at Health magazine (a four-time National Magazine Award-winning monthly) and WebMD and was a staff writer at Health for eight years. She‚s written for the Los Angeles Times, Real Simple, Islands, Reader's Digest, the Sacramento Bee, the Contra Costa Times, Family Therapy Networker, and the East Bay Express, among other publications. She has taught journalism at San Francisco State University; in 2002 she was a science journalism fellow at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.
Jennifer Kahn (Lecturer) Jennifer Kahn has been a contributing editor at Wired magazine since 2003, and a feature writer for The New Yorker, National Geographic, Outside, Discover, Mother Jones, and the New York Times, among others. A graduate of Princeton University and UC Berkeley, she has degrees in astrophysics and journalism, and has been a recipient of the CASE-UCLA media fellowship in neuroscience. Her work has been chosen for the Best American Science Writing series four times in the past seven years, most recently for “A Cloud of Smoke,” about a policeman whose death four years after 9/11 was not what it seemed. Marilyn Chase Morris (Columnist (Heath Journal)) Marilyn Chase is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in English, and the University of California at Berkeley with a Master's in Journalism. As a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Chase covered a variety of medical beats including the biotechnology industry, disease research and personal health. She is the author of "The Barbary Plague: the Black Death in Victorian San Francisco," (Random House, 2003).Previous Instructors
Mark Herstgaard (Lecturer)
Mark Hertsgaard is a journalist, author and broadcaster. An author of numerous books, his next, The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, will be published in the fall. He has contributed to newspapers and magazines the world over and appeared on many television and radio programs at home and abroad. He is a regular contributor of both feature stories and commentary to NPR, particularly to the weekly environmental program, "Living On Earth." He has lectured at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Princeton and many other universities.
Marla Cone (Visiting Lecturer)Cone is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
David Weir (Hewlett Fellow - Lecturer)David Weir is a Lokey Visiting Professor of Journalism at Stanford. He's a veteran journalist who was formerly Editor in Chief of 7x7 magazine in S.F.; Executive VP and Acting Radio News Director at KQED; an investigative reporter for Rolling Stone; a senior editor of California magazine; Managing Editor of Mother Jones; an editorial writer for the San Francisco Examiner; and co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR).
He's authored or co-authored three books, including the textbook Raising Hell:
How the Center for Investigative Reporting Gets the Story (with Dan Noyes,
1983); and over 150 articles for various publications (including the New York
Times, the Economist, New York, the LA Weekly, Rolling Stone, New West, The
Nation, Mother Jones, HotWired, Salon and many others).
He is currently at work on his fourth book, a biography of Rolling Stone founder, editor and publisher Jann Wenner.
Investigative reporter Mark Dowie is a former Publisher and Editor of Mother Jones. He has written over 200 investigative reports for fifty five periodicals worldwide. And he has written six books on subjects ranging from environmental history to organ transplantation to foundation philanthropy.
He has received eighteen American journalism awards, including four National Magazine Awards. In 1982 he was awarded the bronze medallion by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), his fourth award from that organization.
John Harte (Professor)John Harte is a leading climatologist and a professor in UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources as well as the Energy and Resources Group. He is currently a Carnegie Fellow at the Journalism School.
Marion Nestle (Visiting Professor)Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the analysis of scientific, social, cultural, and economic factors that influence dietary recommendations and practices. She is the author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002) and Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism (2003), both from University of California Press.