Nancy Averett

Nancy Averett spent 10 years as a newspaper reporter in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania covering a range of beats: education, the courts and local government. In 2003, she moved with her family to Ohio and spent two years as an adjunct journalism professor at Miami University of Ohio before starting a career as a freelance magazine journalist. For more than 20 years, she has written for numerous national publications such as Runner’s World, Bicycling, Audubon, Scientific American, Discover, Sierra, The Nation and many other outlets. 

She became interested in science and environmental journalism in 2012 and won a First Place award for Outstanding Feature Writing from The Society of Environmental Journalists in 2020 for a story on how communities located near polluting industries struggle to get scientists and regulators to help them fight for cleaner air. 

She especially loves writing about how people and the environment interconnect—the social side of science. Her recent focus has been on the delicate but important intersection of modern science and Indigenous knowledge, and in 2023, she won an EXCEL award for a story on how volcanologists and geologists are teaming up with Indigenous experts to help predict future eruptions.