Ed Yong
Edmund Soon-Weng Yong (born 17 December 1981) is a Malaysian-born British science journalist. He is a staff member at "The Atlantic", which he joined in 2015. In 2021 he received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier in his career, Yong created and wrote the now-defunct blog "Not Exactly Rocket Science", which was published as part of the National Geographic Phenomena blog network. Education. Edmund Soon-Weng Yong was born 17 December 1981 in Malaysia. At the age of 13 Yong immigrated to the UK in 1994. He  became a British citizen in 2005. Yong was awarded Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in natural sciences (zoology) from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 2002. He completed postgraduate study at University College London (UCL), where he was awarded a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in 2005 in biochemistry. Career. Yong's approach to popular science writing has been described as "the future of science news", and he has received numerous awards for his work. Yong received the National Academies Communication Award from the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 in recognition of his online journalism, then part of  Discover's blog group. In the same year he received three awards from ResearchBlogging.org, which supports online science journalism focused on covering research that has already been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that can be adapted for a wider public audience. In 2012 he received the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Stephen White Award. His blog received the first Best Science Blog award from the Association of British Science Writers in 2014. Yong's interactions with other science bloggers and engagement with those who have commented on his blog have served as case studies for academic work in media  studies. His work also has been published by "Nature", "Scientific American", the BBC, "Slate", "The Guardian", "The Times", "New Scientist", "Wired", "The New York Times", and "The New Yorker". In September 2015, Yong joined "The Atlantic" as a science reporter. In August 2020, he received the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing's Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting, citing his reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and his commitment to including marginalized and underrepresented voices in his writing. In June 2021 he received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the COVID-19 pandemic . Personal life. Yong is married to Liz Neeley, a science communicator. They occasionally collaborate on speaking engagements. Yong lives in London and Washington, D.C.