Hi! I’m Richard.

I’m an award-winning science communicator with a more than decade-long scientific training background who left academia for the much more lucrative field of science writing.

I am the Brain Matters Columnist at The Washington Post’s Well+Being desk, covering the neuroscience of everyday life. The column explores the wonders and mysteries of the brain — and why it matters. I’m also the inaugural awardee of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Grant for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism and a finalist for the 2024 Livingston Award.

I have written stories about the life, health, and environmental sciences for The New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, New Scientist, the American Geophysical Union’s Eos, and other publications (portfolio here).

Previously, I was a fact-checker for Vox’s award-winning science podcast, “Unexplainable”; technology podcast, “Land of the Giants”; and daily news podcast, “Today, Explained”. I also served as a communications specialist at the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins’ Brain Science Institute and a researcher for National Geographic’s Brain Games: On the Road TV show.

In another past life, I was a neuroscientist. I received my Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University, where I investigated how the cerebellum - a brain structure traditionally thought solely involved with movement - interacts with the auditory system. As an undergraduate, I studied Neurobiology at Harvard, where I conducted honors thesis research on the behavioral effects of antidepressants on fighting fruit flies. Prior to entering graduate school, I was a Visiting Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service.

I am a President Emeritus of the D.C. Science Writers Association and a proud co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Science Policy Group.

In my spare time, I like to play board games and with my cats (though not simultaneously because they distract from one another and my cats are not particularly good strategists) and climb rock-like structures.

I once caught a pigeon with my bare hands.

You can find my (perpetually slightly out-of-date) resume here. I also did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit, which you can read here.