Mary Ellen Hannibal

Mary Ellen Hannibal's career began in a resolutely bookish way, as a New York magazine editor mostly focused on literary topics. Now rooted in California, for the past 20 or so years she been focused on science and the environment. She considers it her job to understand the science, then translate it for more general readers. This frequently involves contextualizing science within a framework of art and literature. But she's always trying to find a coherent way to break past the false divides that have so fatally set us on a collision course with nature.

In addition to her books, she writes for Bay Nature, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, Nautilus, Science, Anthropocene, and many other publications. She serves on the board of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, and also in various capacities on behalf of: The Smith College Botanical Garden, Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Reserve, Voices for Biodiversity, the American Geophysical Union, Wildlands Network's Rewilding Leadership Council, and the Commonwealth Club's California Book Awards. Awards and fellowships include the National Society of Science Writer’s Science and Society Award, Stanford University’s Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism, an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship and a Stanford University Media Fellowship. She is an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts, in the Design Graduate Program.