Science Concentration

Students in the Science concentration focus on themes and ways of thinking that can be used to cover any scientific field, whether it’s health, technology or the hard sciences. They get a landscape view, looking at history, patterns of discovery and innovation.

They interpret studies, unearth important details, place scientific developments in context — and make science come alive. 

The seminar emphasizes understanding the culture and practice of science, giving students the skills to interpret a peer-reviewed study as well as providing a clear understanding of the peer-review process, its origin and its challenges. The course places particular emphasis on writing creatively and compellingly, whether in a short news story or in a long piece of narrative nonfiction.

What You'll Study

Each semester is centered around a close look at a few fields to get at the larger themes of covering science. The fall semester typically starts with the history of science: students look at the continuities between past events, such as the Scopes Trial, and contemporary issues.

They delve into climate science, visiting laboratories to understand contemporary research, and they examine the politics of the field. They study several exciting frontiers in physics (black holes and gravitational waves) and technology (instruments, ethics and AI), and finish the semester with sessions on ecology, focusing on current issues such as urban ecology or ecoepideniology.

Thesis Feature

For her thesis, Carin Leong, '23 M.A. Science, explored a mining town in South Dakota and the arrival of a physicist's lab searching for dark matter beneath it. She adapted her thesis into a short documentary for Scientific American titled "Waiting Space."

Along the way, students examine scientific funding and think critically about metaphor in science writing. The spring semester focuses on evolution and genetics, neuroscience, public health and medicine. Students often travel to see fossils in situ and at the American Museum of Natural History, and they learn about mass extinction events and how the movements of the cosmos are reflected in sediments on Earth.

Curriculum

The Science program has a strong focus on climate that is led by Professor Marguerite Holloway, the school's Director of Science and Environmental Journalism. She is the author of a forthcoming book on climate change, Take to the Trees: A Story of Hope, Science, and Self-Discovery in America's Imperiled Forests.

The M.A. program includes instruction by climate scientists and offers students the chance to take climate-related classes in other departments, including law, public health, ecology, anthropology, earth and environmental sciences.

Many graduates have gone on to cover climate at outlets around the world.

They learn how to take apart medical studies and use the statistics skills they learned in Evidence & Inference in the fall. They also discuss some of the newest developments in epigenetics and in neuroscience. Recent lecturers included paleontologist Paul Olsen, neuroscientist Stuart Firestein, animal behaviorist Diana Reiss, medical historian David Rosner and sociologist Alondra Nelson.