Public Affairs Conference Guest Nell Greenfieldboyce to Visit Springfield

Ozarks Public Broadcasting proudly announces Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR science correspondent and author, as a featured speaker at the Missouri State University Public Affairs Conference on September 18. Greenfieldboyce will engage with the conference theme, Resilient People, Resilient Future, with her presentation, Science, People, Connection. The event is free and open to the public.

With reporting focused on general science, NASA, and the intersection between technology and society, Greenfieldboyce has been on the science desk's technology beat since she joined NPR in 2005.

In that time Greenfieldboyce has reported on topics including the narwhals in Greenland, the ending of the space shuttle program, and the reasons why independent truckers don't want electronic tracking in their cabs.

Much of Greenfieldboyce's reporting reflects an interest in discovering how applied science and technology connects with people and culture. She has worked on stories spanning issues such as pet cloning, gene therapy, ballistics, and federal regulation of new technology.

Prior to NPR, Greenfieldboyce spent a decade working in print, mostly magazines including U.S. News & World Report and New Scientist.

Greenfieldboyce’s debut book, Transient and Strange, was published in January 2024. Publisher W. W. Norton describes the book as "a wholly original collection of powerful, emotionally raw, and unforgettable personal essays that probe the places where science touches our lives most intimately." The New York Times review says, "In “Transient and Strange” — the title is taken from Walt Whitman’s description of the “huge meteor procession” that “sail’d its balls of unearthly light over our heads” — she narrates a sequence of events that, like those meteors, are both passing and unsettling...Without ever quite expressing it directly, the book says: “Here I am. This is the me you do not usually see.”" Transient and Strange is available at retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, and Politics and Prose.

A graduate of Johns Hopkins, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in social sciences and a Master of Arts degree in science writing, Greenfieldboyce taught science writing for four years at the university. She was honored for her talents with the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists.

Greenfieldboyce will speak on September 18 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the Plaster Student Union Theater. She will give a 30-minute talk followed by a 15-minute moderated Q&A with KSMU General Manager Rachel Knight and questions from the audience. The event is free and open to the public. For parking information and other conference details, click here.

Sponsored by:

The Summit Preparatory School, Edward Jones Financial Advisor Mary Blair, Steven Short Agency of Shelter Insurance, MSU College of Natural and Applied Sciences, Dressler Peters, DeSales Catholic Book Store