Elizabeth Bass

Elizabeth Bass is director emerita of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, now working on special projects for the Center. She is also a Visiting Associate Professor in Stony Brook’s School of Journalism. Working with scientists, theater professionals, journalists and others, Liz led development of many of the Alda Center’s graduate courses for scientists, health professionals and mathematicians and teaches one of its foundational courses, Distilling Your Message. She also initiated the Center’s program of traveling workshops and its collaborative network of affiliated programs. Before coming to Stony Brook as a journalism instructor in 2007, she worked as a newspaper editor for most of her career. She was science and health editor of Newsday, the daily newspaper on Long Island, N.Y., where she edited coverage that won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. She developed and taught in a master’s program in health and science reporting at Stony Brook and also taught journalism at Hofstra University and at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is co-author of two medically oriented books, and had contributed to science and health books for lay audiences. Liz has a BA in English from Cornell University and a Master of Public Health degree from Stony Brook.