After finishing her PhD in genetics from Cornell University, she swapped the lab for the newsroom and headed off to UCSC’s Science Communication program. After graduating, her first job was as the astronomy reporter for Science News, based in Washington, D.C., where she traveled to places like Alaska, Beijing, and Nantes, France in search of astronomy stories. Now, Nadia is happy to be back on the left coast, and relishes the opportunity to write about planets and animals and everything in between (especially spiders), especially if it involves Iapetus, Saturn’s strangest and most awesome moon. @slugnads