Elsa Youngsteadt Science Writer

About Elsa Youngsteadt is a science writer based in Durham, North Carolina. Her writing has appeared in Science, ScienceNOW, American Scientist, and the Raleigh News and Observer, and has covered topics from composting with worms to simulating space junk with giant gas guns. She currently works at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, where she is a science producer for Public Radio International's The World Science Podcast and a contributing editor at American Scientist magazine. She has also completed a AAAS Mass Media Fellowship at WOSU Public Media in Columbus, Ohio, and a news internship at Science magazine in Washington, D.C. She continues to do occasional freelance work. Elsa has a Ph.D. in entomology at North Carolina State University in 2008; her research focused on chemical communication between ants and seeds in Neotropical ant-gardens. The gardening ants cultivate specific plants in their nests, and she made three field trips to the Peruvian Amazon to find out how and why the ants recognize "their" specific seeds. Her research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Chemical Ecology, and other peer-reviewed journals. Although Elsa has redirected her energy to science communication, she maintains an active interest in tropical ecology and conservation. She is also excited about sustainable agriculture, running, rock-climbing, and motorcycles, and volunteers as an English tutor for the Durham Literacy Center.