Natalie Wolchover

Natalie Ann Wolchover (born October 16, 1986) is a science journalist.^[1] She is a senior writer and editor for Quanta Magazine, and has been involved with Quanta's development since its inception in 2013.^[1][2] In 2022 she won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.^[3]

Early life

Wolchover was born in London, England and later moved to Blanco, Texas.^[4]

Writing career

Wolchover began her career freelancing for Make magazine and Seed, then worked as an intern for Science Illustrated.^[5] She then became a staff writer for Life's Little Mysteries where she answered science questions, debunked paranormal claims and fake videos and wrote about new research.^[5]

Wolchover has written for publications including Quanta Magazine, Nature, The New Yorker, Popular Science, and LiveScience.^[6][7][1] Her articles are often syndicated to sites such as Wired, Business Insider, Nautilus, and The Atlantic.^[8][9]

Awards judges have recognized Wolchover's ability to communicate complex ideas such as Bayesian statistics to a general audience.^[10]

Selected writing

Wolchover writes on topics within the physical sciences, such as high-energy physics, particle physics, AdS/CFT, quantum computing, gravitational waves, astrophysics, climate change, and Gödel's incompleteness theorems.^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][excessive citations]} Notable interviews include the highly cited theorists in high energy physics Ed Witten, Lisa Randall, Eva Silverstein, Juan Maldecena, Joe Polchinski, and Nima Arkani-Hamed.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][excessive citations]}

Education

Wolchover obtained a bachelor's degree in physics from Tufts University, during which time she co-authored several publications in non-linear optics.^[27][1] In 2009, Wolchover went on to study graduate-level physics at the University of California, Berkeley.^[1][2] She left graduate school during the first year in order to pursue a career in science journalism.^[1]

Awards and honors

• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting^[3]
• 2017 Science Communication Award, American Institute of Physics.^[28]
• 2017 Director's Visitor, Institute for Advanced Study.^[29]
• 2016 Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award, American Statistical Association.^[30][31]
• 2016 Evert Clark / Seth Payne Award, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.^[30][10]
• Writing featured in The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015.^[30]

Personal life

Wolchover lives in Brooklyn, New York with her wife.^[30]