Natalie Angier () (born February 16, 1958 in the Bronx, New York City) is an American nonfiction writer and a former science journalist for The New York Times. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 1991 and the AAAS Westinghouse Science Journalism Award in 1992. She is also noted for her public identification as an atheist and received the Freedom from Religion Foundation's Emperor Has No Clothes Award in 2003.

Early life

Angier was born in the Bronx, New York City, on February 16, 1958, to Keith Angier and Adele Angier, née Rosenthal. She had three siblings and credits her parents with granting her a deep respect for books from an early age. She was raised in the Bronx and New Buffalo, Michigan.

Education

Angier began her college studies at age 16 at the University of Michigan. After completing two years at the University of Michigan, she studied English, physics, and astronomy at Barnard College, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1978. She also studied medieval literature, post graduation.

Career Angier began her writing career as a technical writer for Texas Instruments. She was then hired as a founding staff member of Discover Magazine in 1980 and largely wrote about evolutionary biology and animal behavior during her four years there. After Discover, she worked as a senior science writer for Time Magazine; as an editor at the women's magazine, Savvy (now defunct); and as a professor at the New York University's Graduate Program in Science and Environmental Reporting.

In 1990, Angier joined The New York Times as a science writer and remains on staff. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 1991 and the AAAS Westinghouse Science Journalism Award in 1992.

Her writing has appeared in print and on-line magazines: The American Scholar, The Atlantic, GEO, National Geographic, O magazine, Parade, Slate, Smithsonian, Washington Monthly, among others. Angier's books and anthology contributions are detailed in the Books section below.

Angier is a voting member of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary.

Philosophical views

Angier first publicly described herself as an atheist in 2001:

This, in part, is why Angier was presented with the Freedom from Religion Foundation's Emperor Has No Clothes Award in 2003.

Personal life

Angier married Rick Weiss on July 27, 1991. Rick Weiss is a former science reporter for The Washington Post. Angier and Weiss live in Takoma Park, Maryland and have a daughter, Katherine Weiss Angier, who graduated summa cum laude in 2018 from Princeton with a degree in Biology.

Awards and honors

Natural Obsessions named AAAS Notable Book of the Year, 1988 Natural Obsessions named New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, 1991 AAAS Science Journalism Award (Large Newspaper), 1992 New York Times Bestseller (Nonfiction), 1999: Woman: An Intimate Geography Freedom from Religion Foundation's Emperor Has No Clothes Award, 2003 A. D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, six-year appointment, 2006–2012 Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, 2007, for The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science New York Times Bestseller (Nonfiction), 2007: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books Finalist, 2008, for The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science American Library Association's Notable Book for Adults Award, 2008, for The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Keynote speaker for the 2009 Washington & Jefferson College commencement exercises Humanist Media Award from the American Humanist Association, 2014 Barnard College Distinguished Alumna Award General Motors International Award for Writing about Cancer Lewis Thomas Award for Distinguished Writing in the Life Sciences Exploratorium Public Understanding of Science Award Voting member of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary

Books

Author: Natural Obsessions: Striving to Unlock the Deepest Secrets of the Cancer Cell, 1988, 1999 Paperback Contributor: New Science Journalists, 1995, Paperback Author: The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views on the Nature of Life, 1995, 1996 Paperback Author: Woman: An Intimate Geography, 1999, 2014 Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2000, 2000, Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2001, 2001, Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2002, 2002, Paperback Editor: The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002, 2002, Paperback Contributor: The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage, 2002, Paperback Contributor: When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories, 2002, Hardcover Contributor: Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, 2003, Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2003, 2003, Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2005, 2005, Paperback Contributor: The Best American Science Writing 2005, 2005, Paperback Contributor: Axelrod & Cooper's Concise Guide to Writing, 4th Edition, 2006, Paperback Author: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, 2007, Paperback Editor: The Best American Science Writing 2009, 2009, Paperback Author: Woman: An Intimate Geography, Revised and Updated Edition, 2014, Paperback

Articles Author: "Not Milk?" (review of Anne Mendelson, Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood, Columbia University Press, 2023, 396 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXX, no. 16 (19 October 2023), pp. 36, 38–39. "[Americans'] consumption of cow's milk [...] peak[ed in] 1945, when [they] drank an average of forty-five gallons apiece. By 2001 the nation's per capita milk intake had been cut in half, to twenty-three gallons, and in 2021 the figure was down to just sixteen gallons of milk per person, or 5.6 ounces a day... Leading the... drop-off are members of Generation Z: people born after 1996... Among the eco-conscious, antipathy toward dairy milk is great enough that some high-end coffee shops feel no obligation to offer it at all." (p. 36.)

External links

Video: Angier interview by Charlie Rose on 5/5/1999, discussing the female body and her book, Woman Video: Angier reads from The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science on a book tour Video: Science, Sex and Society: A Conversation with Natalie Angier "Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations: Natalie Angier"

References