Elsa Youngsteadt Science Writer

Bio Elsa Youngsteadt is a freelance science writer based in Durham, North Carolina. Her writing experience includes a AAAS Mass Media Fellowship at WOSU Public Radio in Columbus, Ohio, and a six-month news internship at Science magazine in Washington, DC. Her work has also appeared in American Scientist, the Raleigh News and Observer, and The Scientist, where she has written about topics from composting with worms to simulating space junk with giant gas guns. She is now a programs manager at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, where she will be working with the society's public understanding of science programs. Elsa has recently completed her Ph.D. in entomology at North Carolina State University, where 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. She is redirecting her energy to science communication, but maintains an active interest in tropical ecology and conservation. Elsa's personal passions and pastimes include sustainable agriculture, running, rock-climbing, and motorcycles.