Hugh Powell

Expertise

Science Communication • Social Media • Web Publishing

I edit the Cornell Lab’s All About Birds website and species guide, and I write and edit for our member magazine, Living Bird. I also manage our main social media channels.

I got introduced to birds by my father, who was an obsessed birder. In college and graduate school I studied ornithology. But during that time, I became fascinated by the value of telling stories about science to people who weren’t academics. After a stint as an editor at an ornithological journal, I enrolled in a science writing program that specializes in teaching journalism to scientists. I never looked back. Since then, science writing has taken me to Antarctica, South America, Africa, Iceland, and elsewhere—even to Ithaca, New York. My main satisfaction still comes from providing someone with information that sparks their own curiosity and sense of adventure.

Education

M.Sc., University of Montana
Graduate Certificate in Science Writing, University of California, Santa Cruz

Beyond the Lab

As a grad student, I spent three summers in the Idaho wilderness climbing dead, burned trees to understand what Black-backed Woodpeckers eat.

Selected Articles

Old Flames: The Tangled History Of Forest Fires, Wildlife, And People

Soaring In Circles: Two Road Trips To See California Condors, Thirty Years Apart

On The Antarctic Peninsula, Scientists Witness A Penguin Revolution

Facing Into the Wind: The Complicated Fate of the Laysan Albatross

The Icelandic Saga Of The Atlantic Puffin, The “Little Brother Of The Arctic”

Gardening for Cassowaries