Christie Aschwanden is the lead writer for science at FiveThirtyEight and a health columnist for The Washington Post. She’s also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, a contributing editor for Runner’s World and a contributing writer for Bicycling. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including Discover, Slate, Proto, Consumer Reports, New Scientist, More, Men’s Journal, NPR.org, Smithsonian and O, the Oprah Magazine. She’s the recipient of a 2014/2015 Santa Fe Institute Journalism Fellowship In Complexity Science and was a 2013/2014 Carter Center Fellow. She blogs about science at Last Word On Nothing and she’s the former managing editor of The Open Notebook. Her Last Word On Nothing post about science denialism at Susan G. Komen for the Cure won the National Association of Science Writers’ 2013 Science in Society Award for Commentary/Opinion, and she was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2011. Find her on Twitter @CragCrest.
In 2005, Christie won a best article award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and was a fellow at MIT’sKnight Science Journalism Medical Evidence Boot Camp. In 2007, she won the Outstanding Essay Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and an honorable mention for print journalism from the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Christie received a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in 2007 to spend three weeks in Vietnam reporting on the legacy of Agent Orange. Her television report on Agent Orange, created in collaboration with producer George Lerner, appeared on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria in June 2007. Her New York Times article about an Agent Orange remediation project in Vietnam’s central highlands was awarded the 2008 Arlene Award for articles that make a difference.
A frequent speaker at writer’s workshops and journalism conferences, Christie is the founder of the Creative Convergence freelance writing workshops, which she developed with funding from the National Association of Science Writers. She has taught at the the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop, the Boulder Magazine Writer’s Conference and the Telluride Writer’s Guild.
Christie has been a featured guest on BBC’s The World, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, The Joy Cardin Show on Wisconsin Public Radio, The Huffines Institute sports podcast, On Point Talk with Carlette Christmas, Jungle Jim Hunter’s Sportcology radio show, KVNF radio and numerous other media. She’s been an invited speaker at Columbia University, George Washington University, American University, University of Wisconsin, Colorado Mesa University and the University of Florida, and she’s given Ignite talks in Arizona and Colorado. Christie is also a regular speaker at journalism conferences including the National Association of Science Writers (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013) and the Association of Health Care Journalists. She is an invited speaker at the 2014 Dialogue for Action: Right-Sizing Cancer Screening in Baltimore.
She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the National Book Critics Circle.
A lifetime athlete, Christie has raced in Europe and North America on the Team Rossignol Nordic ski racing squad. She lives with her husband and numerous animals on a small vineyard and farm in western Colorado. In her spare time, she enjoys trail running, bicycling, digging in the garden and raising heritage poultry.
Christie Aschwanden 
Just found you by way of Slate and went down the rabbit hole of the blog, Twitter, and so on. Because I deeply respect your career path thus far and want similar things for myself, I will be in touch. Cheers and thank you!
Dear Ms. Aschwanden,
As a former member of NASW and a long-ago student at the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop (with Sandra Blakeslee and George Johnson as teachers), I am familiar with the work you do and I know how skilled you are. I am sure you know these things too. Your career is an example to all writers. But (hold on there – this is a good “but,” a positive “but”) what I really want to congratulate you on and thank you for is your first person piece in today’s New York Times. There should be no instances of harassment (by the way, it’s a kind of sad, backhand commentary that we no longer have to say “sexual harassment” to be understood, isn’t it?) in any job, industry, field of endeavor, educational setting, or, well, anywhere. But there is. It persists. And it does take the simple courage to do and say the right thing to end it. As a man, I should call out my colleagues and strangers, and I try to do so – though I am sure I have failed now and then. I have tried to instill respect into my three sons, and to always treat women with courtesy, integrity, and curiosity. That last may sound strange, but what I mean is, I want to learn what others (of both genders) know. I want to learn from everyone – and it’s been my experience that many men do not deal with women as sources of knowledge and experience, but as “treats” to be enjoyed.
I said that doing the right thing takes simple courage, and it does, but other acts take much more than simple courage. In your article you are speaking from personal experience and you are calling on other women to do the same. That is an act that shows tremendous courage.
Since my days as the Director of Communications for a state medical association and then as chief writer for a major cancer research institute (headed, I am happy to report, for the last 20 years by a brilliant and incisive woman with a PhD in microbiology), and as VP for a glaucoma foundation, I have returned to graduate school and earned my doctorate in English. For the past three years I have been teaching technical writing at Alfred State SUNY College of Technology. Oftentimes I use articles from newspapers, journals, magazines, and blogs as examples of clear-thinking, good organization, and exceptional style. I especially enjoy articles that hold an important social message as well. “Harassment in Science, Replicated” is exactly that sort of article. With your permission, I would like to use this article in the coming academic year. Thank you.
Dr. Brian Quinn
Alfred State SUNY College of Technology