Nicola Jones

Biography:
Nicola Jones is a commissioning editor for Nature's opinion section, the science journalist in residence and an adjunct professor at UBC's School of Journalism, and an award-winning reporter. She obtained a combined honours BSc in chemistry and oceanography from UBC, before switching career streams and gaining a Masters in Journalism, also from UBC. She worked as a reporter with New Scientist magazine in London for 3 years, before moving on to the science journal Nature, where she was by turns a news and features editor, the online news editor, and an essays editor. She has written or edited more than 3,000 articles during her career thus far, and travelled from the Arctic to Africa in pursuit of stories.

Abstract:
The editor in chief of Nature can often be heard saying “Canada punches above its weight in science; we should be paying more attention.” Since returning to my native land after a stint of 10 years in the UK, I have been trying to do just that – paying more attention to Canada. The result has been a greater appreciation of local science (and a marked increase of the word ‘Canadian’ in Nature’s pages), but also some disappointment, both from the complaints I hear about policy from Canadian scientists, and from the apparently limited supply of media ‘watchdogs’ on the scene.



In the UK, I had the opportunity to grow from being a ‘science writer’ to a ‘science journalist’, from someone who wrote for print to someone devoted to the web, from a writer of ‘objective truths’ to an editor of opinions. And working with Nature has exposed me to leaders in the worlds of online publishing and scientific debate. Many of these experiences have echoed changes in the broader world of journalism, and may help to shed some light on how the ‘outside world’ sees Canadian science and science policy.