Natalie Angier

Natalie Angier /ænˈdʒɪər/ (born February 16, 1958 in the Bronx, New York City) is an American nonfiction writer and a 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 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., among many other awards detailed in the Awards and honors section below.
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
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
Living people
1958 births
Barnard College alumni
University of Michigan alumni
American science journalists
Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting winners
American atheists
The New York Times writers
American women journalists
Women science writers
Writers from the Bronx
People from Takoma Park, Maryland
21st-century American women writers