Science Talk Creators & Guests

Steven Weinberg was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.He held the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research on elementary particles and physical cosmology was honored with numerous prizes and awards, including the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics and the 1991 National Medal of Science. In 2004, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society, with a citation that said he was "considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today." He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Weinberg's articles on various subjects occasionally appeared in The New York Review of Books and other periodicals. He served as a consultant at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, president of the Philosophical Society of Texas, and member of the Board of Editors of Daedalus magazine, the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress, the JASON group of defense consultants, and many other boards and committees.

Bonnie Rochman is a journalist and author. Her first book, "The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids--and the Kids We Have," was published in 2017.Previously, Rochman was health and parenting columnist for TIME magazine. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Scientific American, and O, The Oprah Magazine.Rochman was a TIME intern, and has reported from the Middle East, Myanmar and Vietnam for the Boston Globe, the Jerusalem Report and Fortune. Prior to that, she was the parenting blogger for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

Dan Koeppel is an author and freelance columnist. He has written columns for The New York Times Magazine and Popular Science.Previously, Koeppel was the editor of the Mountain Bike magazine, where he still writes the "Hug the Bunny" column. He was also a commentator for the NPR program "Marketplace." His first book, "To See Every Bird on Earth," was published in 2005. His second book, "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World," was published in 2007. His third book, "Every Minute Is a Day: A Doctor, an Emergency Room, and a City Under Siege," was published in 2021.Koeppel organizes bigparadeLA, an annual public walk in Los Angeles.

An American writer and producer specializing in the communication of science. She co-wrote the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981. She is the creator, producer, and writer of the 2014 sequel, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

Helen Branswell is a health reporter who focuses on infectious diseases and global health. Currently, she reports for Stat News.Prior to Stat News, Branswell spent fifteen years as a medical reporter and covered the Ebola, Zika, SARS and swine flu pandemics. She joined The Canadian Press in 1986 as London correspondent, and switched to medical reporting in 2000.Branswell received her B.A. in English Literature from the St. Thomas University in New Brunswick.