Biographies
Nancy Baron - Workshop Leader
Nancy Baron, a zoologist and an award-winning science writer, is the lead communications trainer for COMPASS and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. Her work focuses on helping environmental scientists translate their work effectively to journalists, the public and policy makers. Baron started her career as a biologist in Banff National Park. She was a columnist for the Vancouver Sun and has won National Magazine awards, Canadian Science Writers Science awards among others and has written for a wide range of magazines and newspapers. She leads communications training workshop for academic environmental scientists, graduate students and post docs. Her field guide, "Birds of the Pacific Northwest Coast" published by Lone Pine Publishing in 1997, is a top selling beginners' guide to birding. She is currently writing a practical guide on communicating science: Descending the Ivory Tower: A Practical Guide for Scientists who Want to Make their Science Matter which will be published by Island Press in the spring of 2010.
Hanneke Brooymans - Journalist
Hanneke Brooymans has been the environment reporter at the Edmonton Journal for eight years. She started her post-secondary education with a Bachelor of Science degree specializing in environmental biology from the University of Alberta. During a subsequent year of field work and travel, an epiphany in an Australian trailer park launched a career in journalism when she realized that she could continue to feed her curiosity about environmental science issues while at the same time sharing that knowledge with others by becoming a journalist.
Alberta's resource-driven economy offers plenty of fodder for an environment reporter. Oil and gas development, forestry and dwindling water supplies have been key issues in the media. Additional training in computer-assisted reporting offered by the U.S.-based Investigative Reporters and Editors helped add depth to series about the oil sands and air quality in the capital region. Hanneke is also a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Nicola Jones - Journalist
Nicola Jones is an award winning journalist who currently lives in the wilds of Pemberton, just outside of Vancouver BC. After obtaining a BSc in chemistry and oceanography and a Masters in journalism from UBC, she moved to London England to pursue her career in science journalism. She worked as a reporter with New Scientist for three years, writing mainly about natural disasters, climate change and earth sciences, before moving on to Nature, where she served as a news features editor, online news editor, and reporter for four years. During her career she has been to Alaska to observe the melting permafrost, Cameroon to swim in an exploding lake, Utah to watch Hollywood stunt pilots catch a falling spacecraft, and the Canadian Rockies to hunt for trilobites (to name just a few adventures). She has also edited more than 2,500 stories (at last count).
Today, Nicola is the science journalist in residence at UBC, where she will be teaching a course on science journalism in the fall (http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/faculty/nicola_jones/). She is also a part-time commissioning editor for the opinion section of Nature, and a freelance reporter.
Elin Kelsey - Journalist
Elin Kelsey, Ph.D. is an adjunct professor of Environmental Education and Communications at Royal Roads University in Canada. Her research interests focus on public engagement in environmental and conservation/sustainability initiatives and the roles of informal learning organizations. She currently serves as a member of the International Consultative Group of Experts on Biological Diversity Education and Public Awareness for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. She is the award-winning author of ten books and works with a range of international, national and local organizations to communicate and evaluate environment and sustainability projects. The Science Case she wrote for the Pew Environment Group's Global Ocean Legacy Program was instrumental in the 2009 establishment of the world's largest marine reserve in the Pacific Ocean.
Elin is skilled at communicating science and environmental issues through the media. She is a regular contributor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Radio) appearing on Calgary's Eyeopener and national programs such as Quirks and Quarks, Sounds Like Canada and The Gabereau show. Her work appears in magazines including New Scientist and BBC Wildlfe . She served as a contributing editor for OWL Magazine (a science and nature discovery magazine for kids) and is currently completing a hopeful book on the environment for OwlKids Books. Her newest book, Watching Giants: The Secret Lives of Whales will be released in paperback in Fall 2009. It was chosen as Best Summer Read by CBC's Quirks and Quarks. The book is based on first person interviews with 28 leading scientists and was supported through a writer in residence position with Conservation International Mexico. In the summer of 2008 she served as writer-in-residence for Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon. She led science writing workshops in the North as well as a series of Hope and the Environment workshops for kids at the United Nations TUNZA International Children's Conference for the Environment in Norway. Please see http://www.elinkelseyandcompany.com/ for more details and contact information.
Ed Struzik - Journalist
Ed Struzik is an award-winning writer/photographer whose articles have appeared in various journals, magazines and newspapers, including Canadian Geographic, Equinox, Yale 360 Environment, Foreign Policy Review, Geo (Russia), Report on Business, and newspapers like the Toronto Star, Edmonton Journal and Globe and Mail. He is author of the book Northwest Passage, published by Key Porter Books and the Canadian Geographic Society and Ten Rivers, published by CanWest Books. His third book, "The Big Thaw" was published in April 2009 by John Wiley and Sons.
Ed is the recipient of more than 30 national and international awards and fellowships. In addition to the $100,000 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, Ed was the recipient of the Knight Science Fellowship at Harvard and MIT, the Southam Fellowship at the University of Toronto and most recently, the $35,000 Michener Deacon Fellowship. An eight time winner of the Canadian Science Writers Association Science in Society journalism award and a finalist for the $75,000 Grantham Prize, Ed is also the recipient of the Sir Sandford Fleming Medal, which goes to one Canadian each year who has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of science in Canada.
In May 2009, Queen's University made Ed a fellow at the School of Public Policy Studies, Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy.