Hi. I'm JoAnna Klein. I'm a freelance science journalist based in Raleigh, North Carolina (previously New York). I’ve spent the past decade discovering, reporting and writing stories about science, mostly about natural world, for national news outlets. You may be most familiar with my work in The New York Times, where I helped develop the science column, Trilobites. I’m always exploring, and most recently my travels have taken me to creative projects imagining the future and a research investigation into the place I call home, the Appalachian Mountains. In my travels, I’m always discovering new ways of telling stories and engaging audiences.

Most recently, work has focused on imagining possible futures. Working part-time with NC State University’s The Long View Project, I uncover signals of the future, interviewing experts from diverse backgrounds. With those signals, I build future scenarios, which I take into creative collaborations, events and educational experiences. Right now I’m working on an experimental podcast, merging science-fiction and reality in examining a possible future. It’s based on an audio play written during a one-day writing workshop I co-host and develop.

When I’m not time traveling, I’m fact checking for Noema Magazine and working on a book. But I’m always open for story commissions or unusual opportunities.

My story

I grew up in North Carolina digging up dinosaur bones that didn’t exist, prospecting for diamonds that were just quartz, and managing a secret garden that was really a briar patch at the end of the street.

As an adult my unbridled imagination found its home in the field of science. After receiving my master’s in experimental psychology, I went on to publish research about how the brain processes emotion in Joseph LeDoux's lab at NYU. Now I hold up a magnifying glass to the unexpected ways in which science intersects with our everyday lives. I love experimenting with form and finding new ways to tell stories in digital space.

I graduated with a Master of Arts in Journalism from NYU's Science, Health and Reporting Program. Right now, I "unearth fascinating morsels of science" for the Trilobites column at The New York Times Science Desk. I also collaborated on virtual reality stories for NYT’s The Daily 360. I freelance as a writer and fact checker at various other outlets too. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Inverse.com, Newsweek, Motherboard and The Scientist among others.

My reporting has brought me hiking Appalachian mountain peaks to search for bioluminescent mushrooms on a moonless night. It’s taken me jumping and diving over rocks with a 81-year-old woman to count baby Little Penguins at a small beach in Australia. And it’s sent me plunging, in a submarine, 1,900 meters into the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean where I observed shimmering methane seeps and bushes of tube worms the size of a VW bus.

My current obsession is — kind of a secret. But generally, I'm into rocks, mushrooms, forestry, plant intelligence, symbionts, the deep sea and just about anything nature-related, alive, weirdly alive or super weird.

Beyond reporting, writing and future building, I also speak — like in public. At SXSW 2018, I moderated a panel on the award-winning documentary, "Chasing Coral" and the latest tech for imaging coral reefs. I’ve spoken to and with hundreds of scientists and student journalists about the industry and craft of science communication. I’ve been a guest speaker for for the UNC Chapel Hill Library, the Department of Mathematics at Appalachian State University, graduate journalism classes at NYU SHERP, continuing-ed multimedia journalism intensives and sci-comm groups at places like Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. I’ve also shared tips on pumping fun into seemingly boring topics with corporate communications crowds.

To learn more about me, check out my photos, other (really old) photos, BlueSky, vacant threads and LinkedIn. Or, talk to me directly.