A long-time science groupie, I was briefly famous for an essay called “Wettenschap is wat wettenschapers doen.” You could even buy it on Amazon. The title is Dutch for “Science is what scientists do,” a motto I picked up from my one-time boss Dennis Flanagan, for many years editor of Scientific American. You see, he once gave a talk in Amsterdam about the magazine and someone wrote an article about his talk for the local press and . . . I’m sure you can see where this is going. Besides, “Wettenschaper” is such an amusing word, I couldn’t resist using it.

The essay was about children’s science books and the point I was making is that there should be more books that expose children to what Bill Nye calls the PB&J of science: the passion, beauty and joy. It is that attitude more than anything else that I try to capture when I write about science, although it is hard to write a PB&J press release.

I have been an editor or contributing editor at Scientific American, American Scientist, The Sciences, and Natural History, editor-in-chief for Muse, and a writer for ChemMatters, The Horn Book, Wisconsin Natural History and several engineering publications.

I have two degrees in English literature. Yes, the transition was difficult. But I got a first-rate science education in the form of one-on-one tutorials with the scientists I was interviewing for stories. I am deeply grateful to all of them for their patience and for their joy, their P&J.