Thanks for stopping by. I got my start in magazine writing as an intern and then editor at Surfing Magazine (RIP). My most recent work has been for The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Yale E360, and NJ Spotlight News. Two of my stories were selected as notable mentions in the 2023 and 2025 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. My article, about a biologist’s fight to save the endangered Atlantic sturgeon, was selected as a New York Times Great Read, a column that recommends “one piece of exceptional writing from The Times” each weekday. In 2023, I won “Best In-Depth Reporting” in the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists’ annual awards. I also wrote a book called The Drowning of Money Island, about a community left behind in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and have been the recipient of reporting grants from the Pulitzer Center. If I had to pin my writing interests to a single theme, it might be that I love to explore stories that inhabit the narrow corners where water and humans collide.
SELECTED WRITING
A Shipwreck Killed 41 Crew and 5,900 Cattle. The Brutal Business Behind It Goes On.
The sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1 was an existential moment for farm animal exporters. Some of those lessons are being forgotten.
Facing a Hostile Administration, U.S. Offshore Wind Is in Retreat
Offshore wind had been poised to take off along the East Coast, with about 30 utility-scale farms planned. But the Trump administration’s opposition to wind power has caused most of those projects to be abandoned, with only seven farms now moving ahead or in operation.
The Crab Kings
A Notable mention in the 2025 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. Stalin, Putin and climate change inadvertently turned Norway’s most desperate fishing spot into a global seafood capital.
The Ancient Art of Falconry at the Jersey Shore
A Notable mention in the 2023 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. How Ocean City cleared the gulls from its boardwalk — with falcons and hawks.
They Outlasted the Dinosaurs. Can They Survive Us?
Selected as a New York Times Great Read. Sturgeon are disappearing from North American rivers where they thrived for millions of years. And the quest to save them is exposing the limits of the Endangered Species Act.
This ancient forest in Bear Swamp West is a gem. Can it be saved?
As sea levels rise, saltwater is pushing into the swamp, threatening to turn the old-growth forest into a ghost.
A Death at Sea on the ‘Row of Life’
At 59 years old and with a preexisting condition, Paralympic rower Angela Madsen had plenty to worry about as the coronavirus spread across the country. So she dipped the oars of her small rowboat in the Pacific and pointed the bow toward Hawaii. She never returned.
When a Hurricane Hits the Delaware Bay
On the impact of Super Storm Sandy.