Selected Writing

  • Can MDMA Save a Marriage?

    Can MDMA Save a Marriage?

    A new wave of experimental therapy is enlisting the psychedelic drug to help couples in distress heal.

    Nautilus Magazine

  • Death-care workers Naila Francis, Catherine Birdsall and Rebecca Maury / Photography by Julia Lehman

    A Better Way to Die

    Meet the community of people in Philadelphia forging a more dignified path for the dying.

    Philadelphia Magazine

  • A close-up of a pawpaws ripening on the tree at Horn Farm Center in York

    Can the Pawpaw Seed a More Sustainable Future?

    As festivals celebrate the beloved native fruit, researchers explore its potential as a low-input, high-value crop for small farmers.

    Civil Eats

  • An inmate and officer at SCI Chester's Little Scandinavia prison unit

    How One Philadelphia Prison Could Change Incarceration in America

    A groundbreaking research project has reimagined an entire unit with Scandinavian principles. Could it revolutionize U.S. prisons?

    Philadelphia Magazine

  • Herens cattle near Lac de Moiry in Valais, Switzerland.

    A Tragedy with No End

    Why does Garrett Hardin’s pessimistic fable of the "tragedy of the commons" haunt our collective imagination?

    Distillations Magazine

  • Joan Brown's paintings The Bride and Self-Portrait with Fish and Cat

    Finding the Sublime in the Domestic

    A retrospective of Joan Brown explores the artist’s fascination with the everyday objects that surrounded her.

    Carnegie Magazine

  • Sylvia Earle

    Sylvia Earle and the Call of the Deep

    Diving’s interwoven history of exploration and exploitation can trap even a decorated naturalist like so many fish in a net.

    Distillations Magazine

  • Chester Residents Fight LNG Terminal

    Chester Residents Fight Back Against $6B LNG Terminal

    “There’s no place to put it that is not going to be an unbearable, intolerable burden for the people who live near it.”

    Environmental Health News

  • Latanya Byrd advocates for safer streets in the wake of the loss of her niece and three grand-nephews. Photo by Chris Baker Evens

    Is Philadelphia's Traffic Safety Effort Stalling Out?

    In the seven years since the city declared its goal to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030, they have risen by more than 50 percent.

    Grid Magazine