Cornelia Dean is a senior writer in the science department of The New York Times and a lecturer in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.

From January, 1997 until June, 2003, she was science editor of The New York Times, where she was responsible for coverage of science, health and medical news in the daily paper and in the weekly Science Times section.  She spent the 2003-2004 academic year  at Harvard where she was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government and taught in the Harvard College program on Environmental Science and Public Policy.

From 1993 until 1997, she worked in the Washington bureau of The Times as deputy Washington editor; her portfolio was domestic policy. Previously she worked as assistant and then deputy science editor. In her tenure in the newspaper’s science department members of its staff have won the Pulitzer Prize (twice, finalists three times), the Polk Award and the Lasker Award for public service, among many other honors.  She began her newspaper career at the Providence Journal.

Her first book, Against the Tide: The Battle for America’s Beaches was published in 1999 by Columbia University Press and was a N.Y. Times Notable Book of the year. She is at work on a book about the misuse of scientific information in American public life.

In addition to her work at Harvard, she has taught seminars and courses at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Vassar College and the University of Rhode Island, and has spoken to a wide variety of government, journalism and scientific organizations.