About us

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  Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, London

  Phil is in responsible for the editorial content and management of Nature, as well as the long-term quality of all Nature Publications. He has a BSc in aeronautical engineering from the University of Bristol, a MSc in astrophysics from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and a PhD in upper atmospheric physics from the University of Leicester.

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  Oliver Morton, Chief News and Features Editor, London

  Oliver joined Nature in late 2005 - a bit more than twenty years after he started off as a science writer doing an internship at The Economist. In the years in between he edited The Economist's science and technology pages, worked as editor of the UK/Europe edition of Wired, freelanced for everyone from The New Yorker to the Hollywood Reporter, wrote Mapping Mars, a book which the critics liked quite a lot, won a couple of awards, blogged a bit and found a number of other ways to use up half of his life so far.

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  Gaia Vince, News Editor, London

  Gaia joined Nature in 2007 as News Editor, after working at New Scientist. She has spent the past decade working for various media outlets from radio and television to print and online newspapers and magazines in the UK and Australia. When she is not editing wonderful stories from fantastic writers, she likes to explore incredible places around the world and seek out amazing animals and plants.

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  Daniel Cressey, Blog Editor and Reporter, London

  Daniel joined Nature to run the Great Beyond blog after spending two years covering medical developments for doctors' newspaper Pulse. Before this he wrote about science and policy for Research Fortnight after a studying at four different universities in five years. He has degrees in Chemistry, History of Science and Journalism.

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  Alexandra Witze, Senior News and Features Editor, Washington

  Alex joined Nature in May 2005 from the Dallas Morning News, where she worked as a science writer for nine years. In the course of reporting she has traveled to an ice camp at the North Pole, an ocean-drilling vessel in the Pacific, and an ancient Maya city in the Guatemalan jungle. She has a bachelor's degree in geology and the urge to hike past rocks whenever possible.

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  Sarah Tomlin, News Features Editor, London

  Sarah worked on Nature's News & Views section, and later helped to launch the monthly title Nature Materials, before taking up her current post in 2003. She trained as a physicist at Imperial College in London, staying on to dabble in the mysteries of anaesthetic drugs for her PhD. Today, Sarah finds plenty to keep her awake: in addition to editing features in the physical sciences, she edits Nature's Commentary section.

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  Helen Pearson, News Features Editor, New York

  Helen joined Nature in 2001 as an online reporter. She now edits biology features for the magazine and writes on all aspects of biomedical science. Helen has a degree from the University of Cambridge, a PhD in genetics, a few journalism awards and a taste for adventures in far-flung destinations.

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  Michael Hopkin, Reporter, London

  Michael has been a member of the Nature online news team since January 2004, before which he spent two and a half years as a subeditor for Nature's print edition. Besides contributing to newspapers and magazines, he has appeared as a science expert on BBC radio. He has a degree in biology from the University of Nottingham, where he served as a features editor for the student magazine, Impact.

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  Katharine Sanderson, Reporter, London

  Katharine is news@nature.com's physical sciences reporter. She joined the team in September 2006 from Chemistry World, where she was a reporter since the magazine's launch in 2004. In 2005 Katharine was named 'new business features writer of the year' by the Periodicals Publishing Association. She has a chemistry degree from Imperial College London and a PhD in organometallic chemistry from Cambridge University. Katharine has been known to dash around a rugby field but now prefers the sight-seeing opportunities afforded by running the occasional marathon.

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  Heidi Ledford, Reporter, Boston

  Heidi writes about biology and medicine for the online news team, and has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Although her degree is technically in plant biology, her allegiances lie more with algae than plants and she's of no use at all for gardening advice. Heidi has written for the Oregonian, edited for the Berkeley Science Review, and freelanced for a few other places while working in the lab. But she has now put away her pipettes to work full time for Nature.

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  Alison Abbott, Senior European Correspondent, Munich

  Alison has been with Nature in Germany since 1992, covering a variety of scientific topics, mostly in biology. Alison gained her first degree and PhD, both in pharmacology, at the University of Leeds. After a period of post-doctoral research, she spent seven years as editor of Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. As our resident culture vulture, Alison edits the Science in Culture column in Nature's Books and Arts section.

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  Philip Ball, Reporter and Columnist, London

  Philip is a freelance science writer and a consultant editor for Nature. He can often be heard on radio and television, and is the author of several scientific books for the lay reader, including H2O: A Biography of Water (shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award); and Critical Mass (winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize). Philip graduated in chemistry from the University of Oxford, and holds a PhD in physics from the University of Bristol.

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  Geoff Brumfiel, Senior News Reporter, London

  Since 2002, Geoff has written for Nature on everything from nuclear weapons to science and faith. Prior to working at Nature, Geoff wrote for New Scientist, ScienceNOW, and Physical Review Focus, among others. He contributes occasionally to public radio shows including Marketplace and Science Friday. Geoff holds a double-degree in physics and English from Grinnell College in Iowa, and a master's in science writing from John's Hopkins University. In 2007, he moved from Nature's Washington bureau to London, where he now covers physics, space, and policy from a European perspective.

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  Declan Butler, European Correspondent, Paris

  Declan's interests include science in France, global health, science and development, computing, electronic publishing and space science. Before joining Nature in 1993, Declan wrote freelance, and worked for the French biotechnology magazine Biofutur. He graduated in biology from Queen's University, Belfast, and has a PhD in marine biology from the University of Leeds. He was made a Chevalier of France's National Order of Merit in 2003 for for service to science and society.

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  Erika Check Hayden, San Francisco Biomedical Correspondent

  Before joining Nature's staff in late 2001, Erika worked for Newsweek magazine, reporting on science, health and news events, including the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. She now writes on a variety of subjects in biomedical research and related policy, including controversial areas such as bioterrorism, cancer diagnostics and the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs. Erika earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Stanford University in California.

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  David Cyranoski, Asian-Pacific Correspondent, Tokyo

  David had worked in Japan for several years before moving into journalism with Nature in 2000. His varied employment history includes translation for a semiconductor-manufacturing equipment company and teaching history to foreign exchange students. In addition to covering the Asian-Pacific region, David's interests encompass materials, Earth science and intellectual property.

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  Rex Dalton, US West Coast Correspondent, San Diego

  Rex's interest in scientific misconduct has earned him the unofficial title of Crime Correspondent. Officially, he's been Nature's west coast representative since 1999, covering topics including palaeontology, anthropology and the Earth sciences. Over the course of a 25-year career, Rex has reported extensively on local US politics. Before joining Nature, he covered medicine for the San Diego Union Tribune. Rex graduated in business and public administration from the University of Arizona and completed a master's degree in journalism at the same institution.

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  Eric Hand, Reporter, Washington

  Eric fell in love with journalism late, after an early start teaching at a London boys' school and programming car navigation software. He studied civil engineering at Princeton University, and later picked up master's degrees in geography and geophysics from the University of Cambridge and Stanford University. He joined Nature in 2007 after writing for the Oregonian, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His reporting has ranged from crime in Ozark hills to biotechnology in east Africa. He maintains an outsize interest in Scrabble, which he feels is the perfect game.

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  Emma Marris, Retained correspondent, Missouri

  Emma joined Nature in March of 2005, after a six-month stint as an intern, and began working as a contributing correspondent in September 2007. She has a master's in science writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and a bachelor's in English from the University of Texas, Austin. She covers conservation, biology, energy, agriculture, and film, among other things, and edits Research Highlights once a month.

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  Quirin Schiermeier, German correspondent, Munich

  Since 1999, Quirin has written for Nature about science and related policy in Germany, the European Union, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He is particularly interested in climate, oceanography, fisheries and the Earth sciences. Before joining Nature, Quirin worked as a cartographer. He graduated in geography, statistics and economics from the University of Munich.

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  Kerri Smith, Podcast Editor, London

  When she's not presenting and putting together Nature's podcasts, Kerri writes mostly about neuroscience, and sometimes about other bits of biology for the online news team. She joined Nature as an intern in 2006 after completing an MSc in science communication at Imperial College London. In 2005, she won the New Scientist's science essay competition, and whilst at Imperial she wrote bits and bobs for New Scientist and The Times. Kerri has a degree in human sciences and another MSc, this time in neuroscience, from the University of Oxford.

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  Jeff Tollefson, Reporter, Washington

  Jeff came to Nature from Congressional Quarterly, where he covered energy, climate and the environment for two years. Before that he was a Knight fellow in science journalism at MIT; a science reporter at the Santa Fe New Mexican, where he covered Los Alamos and the national labs among other topics; and a general assignment reporter at the Billings Gazette for which he covered Yellowstone National Park. Jeff has won a number of accolades, including New Mexico press awards for pieces on pollution and nuclear-weapons work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is originally from Wyoming and has studied French and Russian.

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  Meredith Wadman, Retained correspondent, Washington

  Meredith reported her first Nature story - on gene therapy - in December 1995, fresh from a stint covering Capitol Hill and White House politics as Washington correspondent for The Oakland Tribune. She has a BSc in human biology from Stanford University, studied medicine as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and went to journalism school at Columbia University in New York. Meredith has also contributed to the Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.