1998–99 Knight Fellows

1998-99 Knight Fellows

Standing from left:
Andrew Lawler, Boyce Rensberger, Kerry Fehr-Snyder,
Bruce Schechter, Claudia Wassmann, Kevin Coughlin,
Venkatesh Hariharan,
Seated from left:
Martha Henry, Robin Lloyd, Daniel Pendick
photo by Graham Ramsay

Kevin Coughlin Coughlin, a newspaper reporter for 18 years, covers technology for The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest paper. He specializes in computers, the Internet and other new electronic technologies. In 1997, he wrote a large and critically acclaimed series on the invention of the transistor 50 years earlier and its subsequent impact on technology and on society. He is a winner of a New Jersey Press Association's prize for technology writing. A three-media threat, Coughlin often reprocesses his stories for The Star-Ledger's television station and its web site. He holds a B.A. in journalism and political science from Rutgers University. At MIT, Coughlin intends to study computing and web technology. Personal interests include hockey, road- and mountain-biking and music.
Kerry Fehr-Snyder Fehr-Snyder pioneered the technology beat for the business section of The Phoenix Gazette, which later merged with its sister publication, The Arizona Republic. She covers the local divisions of many high-tech companies, focusing recently on research and development of communications satellites, small spacecraft and chip design. Fehr-Snyder has won several journalism awards and was an officer of the Society of Professional Journalists and editor of its newsletter. She earned a B.S. from Arizona State University with majors in economics and in journalism. She also did graduate study in economics at ASU. Fehr-Snyder plans to use her MIT fellowship to study planetary science, space systems, tissue engineering in microgravity and gene cloning technologies. Her outside interests include tennis, running, weight lifting, movies and reading.
Venkatesh Hariharan Hariharan is a freelance journalist who covers computers and information technology for a variety of newspapers and magazines in India. He has been closely involved with efforts to make computing accessible to the 855 million Indians who do not speak English. To that end, he coordinates a nonprofit organization that works with software engineers, web site designers and others to develop applications in Indian languages. Before going freelance, Hariharan was executive editor of Express Computer, a newsweekly covering the computer industry in India. He is now a computer technology columnist for The Times of India. Hariharan is the author of Information Technology Products and Services: A Handbook for CEOs and CIOs. Hariharan earned the Bachelor of Commerce degree from Bombay University in 1989. While at MIT, he plans to study how I.T. can help bridge the rich-poor divide, particularly in developing countries. Personal interests include photography, trekking and writing poetry.
Andrew Lawler Lawler is a science writer who has spent more time in congressional hearing rooms and the corridors of federal agencies than in labs. He covers federal science policy for Science magazine. Lawler came to Science in 1994 after eight years of political reporting for various space industry publications. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Lawler majored in anthropology, geography and political science and, after a year at the Universitaet Freiburg, received the B.A. with highest honors from UNC. During his fellowship year at MIT, Lawler plans to get closer to the lab, studying aspects of the physical and biological sciences as well as how science interacts with society at large. In his spare time, Lawler travels, hikes and reads novels.
Robin Lloyd Lloyd earned a Ph.D. in sociology and taught social psychology, statistics and medical sociology for three years before giving up academia for science journalism. For the last three years, she worked for the Pasadena Star-News, covering such nearby science centers as Caltech, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and City of Hope National Medical Center. Lloyd received a B.A. from Smith College and both the M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She taught at the State University of New York at Purchase. Returning to academia at MIT, Lloyd plans to study the biology of AIDS and efforts to develop a vaccine. Also, she plans to study radio astronomy. Lloyd's hobbies include walking, gardening, yoga and folk dancing.
Daniel Pendick Pendick began explaining science to the public as a lecturer at New York's Link Planetarium. Later, he came down to Earth as associate editor of Earth magazine. Today, Pendick is a freelance, selling to such publications as New Scientist and Astronomy. Pendick received a B.A. in rhetoric and literature from the State University of New York-Binghamton and an M.A. in the history of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At MIT he plans to study neuroscience and the history and sociology of science. In particular, he hopes to examine consequences of close ties that sometimes develop between scientists and reporters. Pendick's other interests include playing guitar and singing the blues.
Bruce Schechter Schechter returns to MIT 20 years after earning a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics here. Afterward, he began writing for popular science magazines and in 1980 became a staff writer at Discover. Later Schechter became senior editor at Technology Illustrated and moved on to other science magazines. Most recently, he was on the research staff of Walt Disney Imagineering, a position he left in 1997 to freelance. Schechter is the author of two books—The Path of No Resistance, about high-temperature superconductors, and My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdös. The Ph.D. is Schechter's only degree. He left high school a year early and entered Union College, which he also left early when accepted as a graduate student at MIT. Now back at MIT, he plans to study biology, evolution and complexity theory. His outside interests include piano, poker and cooking.
Claudia Wassmann Wassmann trained as a physician, receiving her M.D. summa cum laude from the University of Düsseldorf, but has devoted her professional life to science and medical journalism. She is an editor and producer with the science unit of German public television, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, in Heidelberg. Several of her programs have won major awards, most recently a 45-minute documentary called "Schizophrenia: The Biology of Madness." Wassman also writes medical articles for German newspapers and magazines. During her medical training, she worked at the University of Bologna Medical Clinic in pediatric surgery and at Djougou Hospital in Benin. During her fellowship year, Wassman plans to study brain imaging technology and artificial intelligence and to experiment with new forms of interactive story telling. Outside interests include reading, movies, travel, photography and the fine arts.