Thomas Hager

I tell dramatic stories about world-changing discoveries. To bring this deeply researched material to life for a wide readership I borrow from the fiction writer's toolbox, enlivening my narratives with sharply drawn characters, strange settings, surprising twists, and page-turning plots. At a larger scale, I emphasize the place of science in society, showing how research affects, and is affected by, politics, money, and human emotions. All that, and readers will learn a good deal about science, too. My work has earned national recognition, including the American Chemical Association's top writing award (the Grady-Stack Medal for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public), and a finalist nod for the Communications Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering. Most recent books are "Electric City" (pub date May 2021); "Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine" ("absorbing" --New York Times Book Review; “Lucidly informative and compulsively readable” -- Publishers Weekly); " "The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Discovery that Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler" (Borders Original Voices selection; Kirkus Best Books of the Year); and "The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug" ("fascinating" -- Los Angeles Times; "a grand story" -- Wall St. Journal). I am a courtesy associate professor of communications and journalism at the University of Oregon, and live in the wooded hills near Eugene.