I grew up in Montague Center, a small town in western Massachusetts along the Connecticut River.

My childhood was a mostly bucolic mix of bike rides and turtle-catching expeditions, maple syrup-making and beekeeping, river swimming and trail running. There was also a constant stream of chores to help keep my family's vegetable farm operating. When I was a teen, I started growing cut flowers for the farm as a summer job, a venture that became a key source of income, helping to cover my high school and college tuition.

In high school, I was fortunate to stumble into my first paid writing gig profiling farmers for a local museum called Historic Deerfield. I was immediately hooked, and I’ve been reporting and writing ever since—for school and local newspapers, national magazines, and the federal government.

Journalism and science writing have taken me to some remarkable places, ranging from NASA control rooms and rocket launches to impact craters in New Mexico and an erupting volcano in Iceland. I’ve explored a high-tech proton-beam cancer treatment facility in Houston, subsiding beaches in Louisiana, heavily polluting brick factories in northern India, and one of America’s “toughest marathons” in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I’m especially drawn to stories that explore the interplay and tensions between natural and human systems. With more than eight billion people now sharing our rapidly changing and warming planet, the stakes could not be higher.

For the past two decades, I’ve lived in Washington, D.C. When not writing, you’ll likely find me chasing after my two children, trying to bring order to my rambunctious garden, running and dabbling in racquet sports, or accompanying my wife—a painter—to art events.