GINA KOLATA, NEW YORK TIMES SCIENCE WRITER,
TO SPEAK ON "REPORTING ON THE EMBRYO" APRIL 17

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Gina Kolata, who writes on science and medicine for the New York Times, will speak on "Reporting on the Embryo" on Thursday, April 17, at 7:30 PM in Gamble Auditorium of the College's Art Building. The event is free and open to the public, and the auditorium is wheelchair accessible.

The talk by Kolata, the best-selling author of Clone: The Road to Dolly and the Path Ahead (1998), Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic in 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It (1999) and the just-released The Quest for Truth about Exercise and Health (2003), is the final event in "The Political Embryo: Reconceiving Human Reproduction," a semester-long series organized by the Weissman Center for Leadership. The series has brought together leading scientists, ethicists, legal experts, science writers, and artists for discussions about existing and emerging human reproductive technologies from a variety of perspectives.

Before joining the Times in 1987, Kolata was a senior writer for Science magazine. Kolata graduated from the University of Maryland and studied molecular biology at the graduate level at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before returning to the University of Maryland to complete a master's degree in applied mathematics. She has also written articles for a wide variety of magazines, including Smithsonian, Ms., Glamour, GQ, and Psychology Today. Flu was a national best-seller and won the 2000 Book Award from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including two Howard W. Blakeslee awards from the American Heart Association, two William Harvey awards from the Squibb Company, and an award from the American Medical Writers Association. Kolata was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting in 2000.

Kolata's talk is sponsored by the Katherine B. Fitzgerald Lecture Fund. She will be introduced by Elizabeth Young, associate professor of English.