Emily Jane Willingham | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 (age 57–58) Waco, Texas, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin |
| Known for | Scientific skepticism, work onendocrine disruptors |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | UT-Austin department of biological sciences professional development award, 1998 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Endocrinology,urology |
| Institutions | UCSF,Texas State University,St. Edward's University[1][2] |
| Thesis | Embryonic exposure to low-dose pesticides : dose response and effects on growth in the hatching red-eared slider turtle (2001) |
Emily Jane Willingham (born 1968) is an American journalist and scientist. Her writing focuses on neuroscience, genetics, psychology, health and medicine, and occasionally on evolution and ecology.[3]
She is the joint recipient withDavid Robert Grimes of the 2014John Maddox Prize, awarded by science charitySense about Science, for standing up for science in the face of personal attacks.[4]
Willingham received her bachelor's degree in English in 1989 and her PhD in biology in 2001, both from theUniversity of Texas at Austin. She completed a fellowship inpediatric urology at theUniversity of California, San Francisco, from 2004 to 2006,[5][6] where she studied underLaurence S. Baskin.[1]
Willingham's work has been published online at Scientific American, Aeon, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Slate, Undark, Knowable, The Scientist, and others and has appeared in print in several local, regional, and national outlets, including in single-issue publications for Centennial Media.[3]
Willingham was a contributor to the Forbes network for several years and ran an informal blog, "A Life Less Ordinary", which she started in 2007 and which published its last post on November 25, 2011.[7] AtForbes.com, Willingham focused on what she described as "the science they're selling you," which included the disproven link between vaccines and autism,[8] as well as theSeralini affair.[9] She has also written multiple articles forSlate.com about GMOs, childbirth, astronaut DNA, and autism, including about what the motivation might have been for Adam Lanza to carry out theSandy Hook elementary school shooting. Her view is that his alleged Asperger's syndrome was not a contributing factor, but that untreated schizophrenia was a more likely cause of his actions.[10] In addition, she has contributed toDiscover, where she has argued that theautism epidemic may, in fact, just be the result ofdiagnostic substitution and increased awareness of the condition.[11] She was called "one of the sharpest science writers in the blogosphere" bySteve Silberman.[12]
In 2016, Willingham, along with co-authorTara Haelle, publishedThe Informed Parent: A Science-Based Resource for Your Child's First Four Years, which examines the science around several parenting-related controversies and common parenting concerns.[13]
In 2020, Emily Willingham published her next book titled Phallacy. The book is a deep dive into penises in the animal kingdom within which she creates a new word for penis, intromittum, a more general description for all organs that relay sex cells between sexual mates of all species.[14]
In 2021, she published another book, The Tailored Brain, that speaks on and debunks myths about diets, supplements, and brain training techniques said to improve brain function.[15]
Willingham has published 44 scientific papers, and, according toGoogle Scholar, herh-index is 22.[16] With regard to her research, Willingham has said that talking about it "has always carried a frisson of the risque." Her research has also led her to what she describes as cool things, including ultrasound and surgery on a spotted hyena and plastic casting of the inside of the mammalian penis.[3] Willingham's PhD research involved sex determination and the effects ofpesticides and other environmental compounds on sex determination and development in thered-eared slider.[17] She also has published on the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals such asatrazine.
Willingham stated in 2012 that she identified as havingAsperger syndrome, which her son has been diagnosed with, but did not intend to pursue a formal diagnosis.[18]
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