Selected Writing

  • 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

  • A Plant Breeder Heralds the Hazelnut

    Bullied by blight, the filbert has long failed to find a home on farms in the eastern U.S. After decades of research, its arrival is imminent.

    Ambrook Research

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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