Alice Dreger

Alice Dreger is a writer, historian, and journalist, and most of her work centers on the epistemology of democracy. She is always working to find out what's true in the hope that it will lead people to treat each other better. She is the inaugural winner of the Courage Award from the Heterodox Academy and has also won awards for research, writing, teaching, and public service.

Dreger's bylines include the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, WIRED, Slate, the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Aeon Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, New Statesman, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Her best-known book is "Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice," which argues that the pursuit of evidence is the most important ethical imperative of our time. Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship and published by Penguin Press, the book has been praised in reviews in The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Forbes, New York Magazine, Human Nature, and Salon.

Dreger's work is often aimed at getting past partisan politics. She earned her Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University, and is a recipient of an Outstanding Leadership Award in Comprehensive Sexuality Education from SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), and the Healthy Teen Network.

Dreger frequently delivers keynotes and plenaries and has given about 200 invited lectures. Her TEDx lecture, "Is Anatomy Destiny?," has been viewed over a million times and she has appeared as a guest expert on media programs such as Oprah, Savage Love, Good Morning America, and NPR, and in many original documentaries, including for A&E, ABC, Discovery, PBS, and HBO.