Deborah Blum: Award-Winning Science Writer

Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist and author of six books focused on critical moments in the history of science. A former director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she currently resides in North Carolina.

Her most recent books focus on toxicology, including The Poison Squad (2018), a New York Times notable book, and the Poisoner’s Handbook (2011), a New York Times best seller. Previous books include Ghost Hunters: William James and the Scientific Search for Life after Death (2006); Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, a 2002 finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Sex on the Brain (1997), and The Monkey Wars (1994). Two of her books, The Poisoner’s Handbook and The Poison Squad, have been American Experience documentaries on PBS. She is currently working on a book about female poisoners.

She is co-editor of two editions of A Field Guide for Science Writers and of A Tactical Guide to Science Journalism (Oxford University Press, 2022). She was also guest editor of Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 (Houghton Mifflin)

Blum was author of a monthly public health and toxicology blog for The New York Times called Poison Pen as well as an environmental chemistry blog for Wired; her blog Elemental was named one of the top 25 blogs of 2013 by Time magazine. She has written for a wide range of other publications including Scientific American, Slate, Tin House, The Atavist, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and Discover. She is the founding publisher of an award-winning digital magazine, Undark, under the auspices of the Knight Science Journalism Program.

Before joining MIT in the summer of 2015, she was the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, following a position as a staff science writer for The Sacramento Bee, where she won the Pulitzer in 1992 for her reporting on ethical issues in primate research. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, Best American Nature Writing, and Best Science On-Line. In 2025, she was inducted into the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame.

She is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers and a former board member of the World Federation of Science Journalists. She currently sits on the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and the advisory board of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a lifetime associate of the National Academy of Sciences, both in recognition of her work in public understanding of science. She is under contract with Penguin Press for a book about female poisoners scheduled to be published in 2027.