Madeline Drexler is an award-winning journalist specializing in public health, medicine, and science. Based in Boston, Drexler will focus her Schuster Ethics & Justice Investigative Fellowship on investigating food safety, biosecurity, and pandemic preparedness—topics which she has covered widely in recent years.
Her book “Emerging Epidemics: The Menace of New Infections” (Penguin, 2010) is an update–with new material on SARS, H1N1 influenza, and innovative approaches to global pandemic preparedness–to her 2003 book “Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections” (Penguin), both of which have received wide critical praise.
Drexler has served as staff editor of Harvard Public Health magazine since 2010. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, The New Republic Online, USA Today, The Journal of Life Sciences, Nieman Reports, Harvard Magazine, and many other national publications.
Since 2003, Drexler has been a contributing writer for Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, publishing provocative long-form interviews with leading scientists and policymakers. From 1988 to 1996, she wrote a weekly medical column for The Boston Globe Magazine, which was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. From 1980 to 1987, she was a staff writer for The Plain Dealer Magazine, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her travel essays have appeared in leading publications. A graduate of Ohio State University, Drexler began her journalism career as a staff photographer for the Associated Press.
