In a previous life, I studied physics, electronics and English literature at Rhodes University, South Africa in an effort to make myself unemployable. It didn’t work, so I read for an MSc in bioethics and health law to see if I could truly study myself out of the job market. It would appear that I’ve studied myself into freelance science journalism.
I’ve written about particle physics, cosmology and everything in between. Since I started perpetrating journalism for a living, I’ve written books, won awards, run national science desks, and learned to eat and interview someone at the same time. I can sometimes be found in a desert somewhere in the world looking at telescopes, fossils, or peculiar plants, but most often I’m in a tiny village just outside of Canterbury in the UK.
My work has appeared in Nature, Science, Scientific American, and Undark, among others. And you may have heard me on radio, talking on the BBC’s World Service or Inside Science programme.
Some awards, etc
2013 Siemens Pan-African Profile Science Journalism Awards: category winner, overall winner for 2013
2015 CNN-MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year winner, category: innovation
2015: Winner of Vodacom Journalist of the Year, category: sustainability
2017: AAAS Kavli Award – gold winner, small newspaper category