Ellen Ruppel Shell
Co-Director and Associate Professor
A correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, Ellen Ruppel Shell writes
about science and public policy for such national publications as The
New York Times, Seed, Discover and the Washington Post. She has
served as an editor for a number of magazines and for public
broadcasting, and is sought out frequently as a commentator on issues
of science and the press. Her most recent book, The Hungry Gene: The
Science of Fat and the Future of Thin (Grove/Atlantic, 2002),
published in six languages, took an unflinching look at the spreading
obesity pandemic. Critics called it "enthralling," written with a
"narrative gift that transforms the story of history, science and
politics of obesity" into "observant little dramas" that are both "fascinating" and "chilling."
Douglas Starr
Co-Director and Associate Professor
Doug Starr is the author of the book BLOOD: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce (Knopf, 1998), which was published in five languages, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (science and technology category) and was named to the "Best Books of the Year" lists of Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal. A PBS series based on the book aired on more than 300 PBS stations in the U.S., and in nine foreign countries. Starr's writings about medicine, public health and the environment have appeared in a variety of venues, including The New Republic, Science, Smithsonian, Public Television, National Public Radio, The Los Angles Times, and the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine. He has appeared as a commentator on ABC's Nightline, the BBC, CNN and NPR, and served as a juror for the 2002 general non-fiction Pulitzer Prize.
Gino Del Guercio
Adjunct Professor of Journalism
Gino Del Guercio is a documentary filmmaker who has produced and directed television programs for PBS, Discovery Channel and A&E. He is currently directing a new two-hour feature film about an expedition to the high Arctic called Searching for Adolphus Greely. He also recently produced a four-hour series for PBS called Red Gold: The Epic Story of Blood, and co-produced a documentary about the Wright Brothers for NOVA. He has won numerous awards including an Emmy, the AAAS Journalism Prize, and a CINE Golden Eagle.
Mr. Del Guercio trained as a television producer at WGBH-TV in Boston. He has taught in the Boston University Journalism Department since 1988. His writing has been published in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, as well as numerous other newspapers and magazines.
Phil Hilts
Adjunct Professor of Journalism
Philip J. Hilts is an accomplished and prominent health and medical journalist. In his more than two decades at the New York Times and Washington Post, Phil has written hundreds of front page stories on medicine and public health. While at the Times, he received three New York Times Publisher's Awards for his coverage of the tobacco industry, breast implants and birth control politics. The Post nominated him three times for the Pulitzer prize for his work on AIDS in the United States and Africa, and on chemical and biological warfare. He is a prominent author, whose books include Smokescreen: The Truth Behind the Tobacco Industry Cover-Up (Addison-Wesley, 1996), Memory's Ghost: The Strange Tale of Mr. M and the Nature of Memory (Simon & Schuster, 1995), Scientific Temperaments (Simon & Schuster, 1995), Behavior Mod (Harper's Magazine Press, 1974) and Protecting America's Health: the FDA, Business and One Hundred Years of Regulation (Random House, 2003).
