A personal update: This week, I start as @highcountrynews's climate and science fellow! Comms officers, researchers, think tanks, and nonprofits, if you have tips or story ideas on #climate & #environment issues concerning the Western US, feel free to say hi 📧 shien.kim@hcn.org

Editorial fellow Shi En Kim joined avian researchers to check on American kestrel nest boxes around Mount Diablo, California. https://t.co/1SYMBN7Sbq

By yours truly, both the text — and art.

"The stock handlers represent the ancient tradition of animal and human working together to move what feels like literal heaven and earth across harsh terrain, forging lifelong bonds in the process." #longreads @goes_by_kim for @highcountrynews https://t.co/Kk5XYATvaJ

A federal funding pause, a hiring freeze, and buyout offers for federal employees—how Trump’s executive orders are causing chaos at the EPA My 1st piece for @highcountrynews: https://t.co/Fg2sJCM7Eh Thanks to all who spoke with me, including the @EnviroProtNet

Congrats @highcountrynews fellow @goes_by_kim on this timely report of chaos at the EPA in the wake of Trump's first ten days in office. We are all at risk.

Here's @laxmevy sharing some really sick science for @Sequencermag: https://t.co/Cyvdymy6B0 Yes, we have an Instagram page! Check us our other videos at @sequencermag

Looking ahead to 2025: wrapping up some ambitious projects, a resolution to enjoy the outdoors more, some career moves ahead. Stay tuned, and thanks for following!

In my first piece for @SierraClub, I got to rant about plastics pollution problem. I hope this piece makes you mad as much as it made me when I was working on it:

My first piece for Bioscience, about the secret lives of biocrusts, the puny defenders of the drylands. This is potentially the longest piece I've worked on so far!

Another fun piece I did for @SmithsonianMag, a has-everything kind of story that touches on botany, microbes, endangered wildlife, culture, history, and the thrill (and, unfortunately in this case, disappointment) of expedition. https://t.co/EVc6o6bdpd

I was awarded a grant from @pulitzercenter to travel to Brazil to report on agricultural stories. Here's one of the first stories that came out of the trip, for @MongabayOrg @mongabay_brasil: https://t.co/FVhD4LyKxM

Among the planets I did a series on for @SmithsonianMag, my favorite is #Jupiter, for the shallow reason that it's the prettiest (to me). Its curlicues really inspired me to wax poetic about it:

For @nature, I wrote about the challenges of people with #LongCovid navigating the convoluted journey of academia, hard enough already as it is with or without a health condition. I salute these brave people:

For @NatGeo, I wrote about a scientific discovery I stumbled upon when I was on a family vacation in Japan:

Art meets science in this @SmithsonianMag piece about the rivers of the world:

A stab at a personal essay involving a scientific phenomenon for @Sequencermag:

Time for the year-end roundup of my favorite pieces published this year!

A huge thank you to @goes_by_kim for her stellar review of HOW TO KILL AN ASTEROID @ScienceNews, calling it “a deep dive into the extremely badass business of thwarting a destructive asteroid,” that’s “full of suspense”, but also “witty and lighthearted.”

Fungi could save one of the rarest plants in the world. Na’u is a flowering tree on the brink of extinction in Hawaii. 🌸 Nicole Hynson, @uhmanoa & SPUN Underground Explorer, thinks fungi may hold the key to na'u's revival. @goes_by_kim, @SmithsonianMag