Other Work

The Quest to Grow the First

Great American Wine Grape

for Smithsonian

Four States Confirm Water Pollution from Drilling

for AP (USA Today)

Solar Energy: Boom and Controversy

for CQ Researcher

Winemakers have thrived by embracing

some traditons and disrupting others

for Quartz

Foraging Israel

for Tablet

Goliath’s Dig

for Scientific American

Food: The Boudin Trail

for AP

Palestinian winemakers

preserve ancient traditions

for AP

Protecting the Power Grid

for CQ Researcher

AP Impact: Deadly side effect to fracking boom

The American Eugenics Movement After World War II

Mickey Mantle / A Wounded Hero

Frank Zappa: A Maverick Musicians Complex Cancer

Iraq reporting

from the Christian Science Monitor

For more than 40 years North Carolina ran one of the nation’s largest and most aggressive sterilization programs. It expanded after World War II with help from a wealthy New Yorker and an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune, even as most other states pulled back in light of the horrors of Hitler’s Germany.


North Carolina’s historic debate over its eugenic past was launched by Against Their Will, a series in the Winston-Salem Journal. The series led directly to an apology from the governor and the first legislation in America to compensate victims of involuntary sterilization.

You can buy the book version here

I wrote the chapter The Biology of Behavior, which looks at the ethical issues around choosing expert commentators.

You can order the book here

Against Their Will:

North Carolina's Sterilization Program and the campaign for reparations

A Field Guide

for Science Writers

The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers

Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson and Robin Marantz Henig, editors