Dan Fagin (born February 1, 1963) is an American journalist who specializes in
environmental science. He won the 2014
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published du ...
for his best-selling book ''
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation''. ''Toms River'' also won the
Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, the
National Academies Communication Award, and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award of the
Society of Environmental Journalists
The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media. On its website, the organization says that "SEJ’s mission is to strengt ...
, among other literary prizes.
Early life
Fagin was born in
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...
and attended high school at
Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School, where he was friends with another future author,
Blake Bailey.
Fagin graduated in 1985 from
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...
, where he served as the editor-in-chief of ''
The Dartmouth
''The Dartmouth'' is the daily student newspaper at Dartmouth College and America's oldest college newspaper. Originally named the ''Dartmouth Gazette'', the first issue was published on August 27, 1799, under the motto "Here range the world— ...
'' (the college's daily newspaper).
Career
From 1991-2005, Fagin was the environmental writer at ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is a daily newspaper in the United States primarily serving Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI" ...
'', where he was a principal member of two reporting teams that were finalists for the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
. Fagin is a former president of the Society of Environmental Journalists. In 2003, his stories about cancer epidemiology won the Science Journalism Award of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
, and also won the
Science-in-Society Award of the
National Association of Science Writers.
Fagin is a Professor of Journalism at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
, and the director of the NYU Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.
[The Science Communication Workshops at NYU: Our Faculty]
. New York University. journalism.nyu.edu. Retrieved June 16, 2017. He is also the founder and director of the NYU Science Communication Workshops.
His book ''
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation'' was published March 19, 2013. In a review, Abigail Zuger in the ''New York Times'' called it "a new classic of science reporting."
He is also the co-author with Marianne Lavelle of the book ''Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law and Endangers Your Health'' (1997). Fagin is currently working on a book about monarch butterflies and the future of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.
Personal life
He is married to Alison Frankel, a senior legal writer at Thomson-Reuters; they have two children and live in
Sea Cliff, NY.
References
External links
Dan Fagin official website
*New York Time
by Fagin about parallels between chemical industry practices in Basel (starting in the 1860s), Cincinnati, Toms River and now China.
*New York Time
by Fagin about a trip to Basel and outsourcing of toxic manufacturing practices.
*Scientific America
storyby Fagin about
molecular epidemiology Molecular epidemiology is a branch of epidemiology and medical science that focuses on the contribution of potential genetic and environmental risk factors, identified at the molecular level, to the etiology, distribution and prevention of disease w ...
research in China.
*NP
interviewwith Fagin and other journalists about the state of environmental reporting.
Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Programat New York University
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fagin, Dan
American non-fiction environmental writers
American environmental journalists
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction winners
New York University faculty
Newsday people
Writers from Oklahoma City
American male journalists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American journalists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
1963 births
Living people