Merging Science and Society

Last fall the Graduate Program in Science Writing welcomed its inaugural class. This one-year master's track curriculum is designed to improve participants' writing on science and technology for general readers. The initial seven students, whose backgrounds range from literature to engineering, share a desire to elevate public understanding of science.

Writing about a technical subject so that a layperson can appreciate the topic is "a trick, an art. It's hard," says Robert Kanigel, the program's director and a professor of science writing. To help them learn to write succinct scientific prose, students have access to the Institute's unparalleled scientific resources, and they are taught by world-class faculty, including Alan Lightman, author of numerous novels and nonfiction works, and B.D. Colen, a Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter. In addition to taking an intensive, year-long writing "megaseminar" and preparing a thesis, each semester every participant takes an elective course, which may be chosen from any department. The work culminates in a summer internship.

This year's theses reflect the students' diverse interests. One student is writing about Claude Shannon's seminal 1948 paper on information theory. Another is investigating rice hybridization. A third is exploring the myriad ways of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.