Slate Editor to Visit Campus, Take Part in Public Panel Discussion
Laura Helmuth, science and health editor of Slate.com, will visit the University of Maine as the 2015 Alan Miller Fund visiting journalist. During her March 30–31 visit, Helmuth will speak to communication and journalism classes; meet with UMaine students and faculty; and participate in a public panel discussion.
The discussion, “The Art of Science Reporting: Investigating the Best Way to Inform the Public,” will take place 2:30 p.m. Monday, March 30 at Wells Conference Center on campus. The talk is free and open to the public.
Helmuth will be joined by Jackie Farwell, health editor of the Bangor Daily News; and Matthew Nisbet, a professor of communication studies and public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University, as well as senior editor of Climate Science, an Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Emily Haddad will introduce the panel, which will be moderated by Jennifer Moore, assistant professor of communication and journalism at UMaine.
Helmuth’s visit is part of the Alan Miller Fund for Excellence in Communication and Journalism. The fund is designed to bring experienced journalists to campus to interact with UMaine students, faculty and officials. Past Alan Miller Fund visiting journalists include Abby Goodnough of the New York Times in 2009, Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe and Bettina Boxall of Los Angeles Times in 2010, Abigail Goldman of Los Angeles Times in 2012, and UMaine alumnus Brian Naylor of NPR in 2013. The fund also has supported the UMaine visits of journalists Bob Woodward in 2007 and Doris Kearns Goodwin in 2012.
The fund was established by Anne Lucey, a UMaine alumna and current Chair of the Board of Visitors Executive Committee, in memory of Alan Miller, her late husband who taught journalism at UMaine for more than two decades.
Helmuth works in the Washington, D.C., office of Slate, a daily online magazine founded in 1996 that offers analysis and commentary about politics, news, business, technology and culture. Helmuth has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley and previously worked for Smithsonian and Science magazines.
For more information or to request a disability accommodation, contact Jennifer Moore at jennifer.e.moore@maine.edu.