Hi, my name is Elise. Nice to meet you.

I’m a science journalist covering the Earth and life sciences and have written for Scientific American, Science, AGU’s Eos, Science News, and more.

Before I stumbled into writing, I had the entirely sensible goal of becoming a researcher am currently finishing up my Master’s degree in geobiology — a combination of geology and biology — at MIT. I’m a member of the Bosak lab, where I study how bacterial slime changes how minerals grow. During my undergraduate studies at Caltech, I drifted from planetary science to geology before finally landing on geobiology and worked on developing non-destructive methods for characterizing the mineralogy of Martian meteorites. I even get to touch a Mars rock! (with gloves)

Before coming to MIT, I spent a Fulbright at the University of Southern Denmark.

I’ve written on everything from the limits of microbial life to mercury pollution, and am especially interested in stories about microbes, the solar system, and all of the wild ways life and the Earth influence each other.

When I’m not in the lab or re-re-re-writing a lede, I’m probably either very-nearly lost in the woods, adding to my too-tall stack of German flashcards, or overthinking a tweet.