6 Non-Fiction Authors Writing About Science

Even if you don't have an academic career, it's still possible to keep up with the latest developments in numerous fields of study. These authors are all creating works that explore science in easy-to-understand ways, whether it's cutting-edge futurism or explanations of human and animal behavior. This video was made with Ezvid Wikimaker.

6 Writers Making Science Accessible to Readers

Author Popular Titles
Ajay Agrawal Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence (with Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb) The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda (Edited by, with Gans and Goldfarb)
Bianca Nogrady The End: The Human Experience Of Death The Best Australian Science Writing 2019 (Edited by) The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World (with James Bradfield Moody)
Kelly Milner Halls Mysteries of the Mummy Kids Albino Animals Wild Dogs: Past & Present
Roberto Trotta The Edge of the Sky: All You Need to Know About the All-There-Is
David DeSteno Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us (with Piercarlo Valdesolo) Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride The Truth About Trust: How It Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More
Les Johnson Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos (with Gregory L. Matloff and C. Bangs) Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World (with Joseph E. Meany) Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (with Matloff and Giovanni Vulpetti)

David DeSteno on Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion and Pride

Organizations Encouraging Girls To Pursue Science

Name Mission
Inspiring Girls Expeditions Empower young women to lead and succeed through science, art, and wilderness exploration
Tech Girls Movement Foundation Give girls access to hands-on technology and programs to build their skills and confidence
ScienceGrrl Celebrate and support women in science
Technovation Empower girls and families to become leaders, creators, and problem-solvers
Rwanda Girls Initiative Educate and empower girls of Rwanda to reach their highest potential
Tech-Girls Empower girls to imagine and achieve their future dreams in our tech-savvy world
Greenlight for Girls Inspire girls of all ages and backgrounds to pursue STEM subjects by introducing them to the world of science in fun and exciting ways

Les Johnson Discusses Solar Sails

In Depth

The sciences represent some of the most vital, and most fascinating, fields of human study. But journalism about these areas, unfortunately, is often sensationalistic and shoddy, parroting under-researched claims and misconstruing methodologies. This only highlights the debt we owe the popular science writers who can produce informative, engaging texts while remaining responsible to the truth in all its complexity. This list, unfolding in no particular order, looks at some of those writing great books on subjects like artificial intelligence, astronomy, psychology, and zoology.

Starting things off at #1, Ajay Agrawal is a researcher, entrepreneur, and speaker who explores the economics of machine intelligence. He serves as the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Agrawal is the founder of the Creative Destruction Lab, a not-for-profit program focused on helping business owners exploit science-based projects and develop them into profitable companies.

Alongside Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, Agrawal is co-author of Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, named one of the top ten technology books of 2018 by Forbes. With the same co-authors, he also published an academic book on the same subject, designed to lay out a research agenda. His articles have appeared in publications including Harvard Business Review, Indian Management, and the Toronto Globe and Mail.

His articles have appeared in publications including Harvard Business Review, Indian Management, and the Toronto Globe and Mail.

For #2, we've got Bianca Nogrady. She's a freelance journalist and book author from Australia who has been publishing for more than a decade. Her writing on science, the environment, and health has appeared in outlets including Nature, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Undark, and the MIT Technology Review, among other publications.

Nogrady's book The End: The Human Experience Of Death explores human mortality from every angle, while The Sixth Wave, co-written with James Bradfield Moody, is a motivational business book about technological innovation. Nogrady was also editor of The Best Australian Science Writing in 2015 and 2019.

Coming in at #3, Kelly Milner Halls writes nonfiction books for young readers. Since 1995, she has published numerous books addressed to children on scientific subjects. Milner Halls favors unfamiliar and "weird" topics, such as UFOs and cryptids like Sasquatch, the Chupacabra, Kraken, Bigfoot, and Mothman. She also writes for magazines and makes frequent visits to schools.

Since 1995, she has published numerous books addressed to children on scientific subjects.

Among Milner Halls' numerous books, there is Tiger in Trouble, which highlights amazing animal rescue stories, and Ghostly Evidence, about the paranormal. Many of her titles concern dinosaurs, such as Dinosaur Parade, a picture book illustrated by Rick C. Spears that offers colorful facts to readers from Grades 1 through 3. She has also contributed two volumes to the Cool Careers series, on astronauts and virtual reality specialists.

Our #4 entry is Roberto Trotta, who is Professor of Astrostatistics in the Astrophysics Group at Imperial College London, an Academic Fellow of that school's Data Science Institute and Director of its Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication. Trotta's research concerns analyzing, interpreting, and making sense of cosmological observations, in order to learn more about the properties and nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Trotta's research concerns analyzing, interpreting, and making sense of cosmological observations, in order to learn more about the properties and nature of dark matter and dark energy.

In 2014, Trotta published his book The Edge of the Sky: All you Need to Know about the All-There-Is. In it, the author describes some of the biggest mysteries of modern cosmology, all while employing only the 1000 most common words in the English language. For a period, Trotta also maintained a New Scientist column that operated with the same conceit. He has also contributed articles to The Guardian and Le Scienze.

Clocking in at #5, it's David DeSteno. He is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Group. His research examines the mechanisms of the mind that shape vice and virtue. Studying hypocrisy and compassion, pride and punishment, cheating and trust, his work demonstrates that human moral behavior is much more variable than most would predict.

Studying hypocrisy and compassion, pride and punishment, cheating and trust, his work demonstrates that human moral behavior is much more variable than most would predict.

In his book Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride, DeSteno promotes what he sees to be the three most significant prosocial emotions. The Truth About Trust: How It Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More looks at how trust influences every level of the mind. DeSteno's first book, Out of Character, was co-authored with Piercarlo Valdesolo and became a Wall Street Journal Psychology Best Seller.

Wrapping up our list at #6, Les Johnson describes himself as a Christian, husband, father, physicist, and author of texts of science fiction and fact. He works in the Science and Technology Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he serves as the Solar Sail Principal Investigator for NASA's first interplanetary solar sail mission, the Near Earth Asteroid Scout, and the Principal Investigator of a proposed mission to study the sun.

Johnson's nonfiction books include Living Off the Land in Space, written with C. Bangs and Gregory L. Matloff, which attempts to realistically imagine how humans might subsist in outer space. With the same co-authors, Johnson's Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Planet Earth proposes a future of the environmental movement through the exploration, resource extraction, and, eventually, settlement of the farthest reaches of the galaxy. With Joseph E. Meany, he also wrote a layperson's introduction to the experimental material graphene.