Deborah Blum

Blum expanded the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series into a book of the same title. Her second book, Sex on the Brain examines the biological differences between men and women. In Love at Goon Park, she explores the life and career of groundbreaking psychology researcher Harry Harlow, and in Ghost Hunters she follows a quest by 19th century psychologist-philosopher William James and colleagues to apply objective scientific methods to the study of paranormal phenomena. In The Poisoner's Handbook she explores the pioneering work of two unheralded scientists who paved the way for modern forensic detectives. This book was promoted on Point of Inquiry. She received the James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public from the American Chemical Society in 2015 for this book.

In 2015, after Nobel Prize winning biochemist Tim Hunt made a controversial speech about women in science, Blum was one of three journalists present who initially broke the story. Although acknowledging that parts of it praised women scientists, she wrote that she found Hunt's speech troubling even after she asked him for clarification. Reporting on accusations that Hunt had been taken out of context, conflicting recollections of the phrase "now seriously" became a focal point for many commentators. Blum stated that she did not remember whether or not he spoke these words. Former UK member of Parliament Louise Mensch has documented what she considers to be factual and ethical shortcomings in Blum's account of Hunt's remarks. These claims have been disputed by British journalist and author Dan Waddell, who argues that they are politically motivated.

Blum became director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, a fellowship program endowed by the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation to encourage "a select breed of journalist", in July 2015. The following year, she expanded on the fellowship program by launching Undark, a digital science magazine. The magazine debuted in March 2016. The magazine's founding editor-in-chief was Tom Zeller, long time environment writer for The New York Times. In July 2016, David Corcoran, former editor of Science Times at The New York Times, joined the program as a senior editor at the magazine and associate director of the program.

After earning a master's degree in environmental journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Blum returned to the Fresno Bee, where she became an award-winning environmental reporter. She was the first to report on the startling incidence of severely deformed waterfowl at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, where poor management of irrigation runoff had polluted the wetland with toxic levels of the element selenium. Her work for the Fresno Bee put the mid-sized paper ahead of much larger regional rivals, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times in covering this major environmental story.

Blum has written, most often about science and its interrelationship with American culture, for publications that have included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Time, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Discover, Psychology Today, Rolling Stone, the Utne Reader, and Mother Jones. In 2013, she began writing "Poison Pen" which appears as a column in The New York Times and as a blog post in the newspaper's online edition. Her blog "Elemental" appears regularly on the Wired website. After becoming director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, she created and became publisher of a new on-line science magazine, Undark.

From 1997 until 2015, she was a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2005 she was appointed Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism, an endowed faculty position within the University of Wisconsin journalism school. In July 2015, she became director of Knight Science Journalism at MIT.

As science writer for the Sacramento Bee, Blum wrote a series of articles examining the professional, ethical, and emotional conflicts between scientists who use animals in their research and animal rights activists who oppose that research. Titled "The Monkey Wars", the series won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

In 1984, Blum joined the staff of the Sacramento Bee, where she broadened her range, covering science subjects. Her series "California: The Weapons Master" was awarded the 1987 Livingston Award for National Reporting. In 1992 the American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded her its AAAS-Westinghouse Award for Science Journalism, also for the "Monkey Wars" series.

Deborah Blum (born October 19, 1954) is an American journalist and the director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is author of books including The Poisoner's Handbook (2010) and The Poison Squad (2018), and has been a columnist for The New York Times and a blogger for Wired.