Alison is a science communicator, crafting stories out of data, facts, and interviews with experts. She loves the intellectual puzzle of writing — and the ability of stories to move our hearts. Earlier in her career, she followed a fascination with nature and living things to earn her doctorate in microbiology at MIT in 2015. To then communicate science to a broader audience, she studied the varied forms of science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She can take photos, shoot video, and edit both. After graduating, she managed a peer-coaching center for writing, speaking, and visual communication at MIT. She also freelances stories published with Sierra Club, National Geographic, Earth Magazine, MIT, and others. For one story, she followed an MIT class studying HIV to South Africa and helped produce a short documentary on their experience.

She was lately creating multimedia stories — and hosting a podcast — at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, a user facility of the US DOE Office of Science. Her efforts helped her communication team win the 2020 Berkeley Lab Director’s Award for Outreach.

Now, Alison is staff writer at the bright nonprofit climate newsroom, Canary Media, covering the clean energy transition. She helps explains key facets of the energy world, including what the heck “net metering” means, how people can get solar energy without putting it on their roofs, and what climate incentives could save you money. She recommends you subscribe to the newsletter for more fascinating stories.

In her spare time, Alison has divested her retirement account, dug a garden, garnered Audience Choice Awards for talks on turkeys and the Narwhal Curve, presented on climate change solutions, and convinced a skittish foster bunny that she’s a small, nonthreatening, and gentle human. She’s based in Golden, CO.