Tabitha M. Powledge is an award-winning science and medical journalist who has written for a broad range of popular and professional publications. They include Popular Science, Health, Scientific American, Salon.com, Archaeology, and the Washington Post, as well as scientific journals such as The Lancet, Current Biology, PLOS Biology, and Nature Medicine. She is also the author of Your Brain: How You Got It and How It Works. (Scribner's, 1995.) Powledge spent several years at the Hastings Center specializing in policy and bioethical issues related to genetics. She was also Senior Editor of the journal now known as Nature Biotechnology and Founding Editor of The Scientist. Powledge holds an M.S. in genetics; her general-audience booklet "Genetic Basics", written under contract for the National Institutes of Health, has won two awards from the Society for Technical Communication. She has also been awarded two study fellowships by the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Powledge is a member of the Authors Guild, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Association of Health Care Journalists and is serving her third term on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Science Writers. She is presently at work on a new edition of her book on the brain. Her new book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology, co-authored by microbiologist Jeffrey Byrd, was published last November by Alpha, a trade division of Penguin.
