Science Writing
I'm a third-year student at the University of Florida studying Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience and Economics with a minor in Classics. I run a daily newsletter called the Murrow Daily Report (sign up by emailing [email protected] or like us on Facebook), where I share relevant articles and synthesize the important information for voters; I'm also founder and editor-in-chief of a literary satire magazine called Trout (named for Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout, not the fish), which can be found at TroutMagazine.org.
Just about all things scientific or political fascinate me, and I enjoy writing about both as well as about music and film. I look forward to a career as a writer in some form, and journalistic and filmmaking ambitions often collide noisily in my head — perhaps when I have the money to afford more than 15 clippings in this portfolio, some short film scripts will be shared as well.
Science Writing
No more dangling your arms through a forest of outstretched limbs, phone in hand, to capture a slice of reality on a screen while you, well, miss it. In due time, our eyes may be enough.
Carnivore...the word conjures meat and bones. A fleshiness. Thick fur or leathery scales and two rows of sharp, gleaming teeth. Today, however, I'll tell you three stories (with three videos!) for which "carnivore" has a leafier connotation. STORY NUMBER ONE-Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Trap. We all know the Venus Fly Trap.
Two black holes waltzing through the cosmos, swirls of light flaring outward from our dancers like skirt and coattail, gravity the matchmaker. Closer and closer they inch, easing into a delicate embrace until - BOOM!
A pregnant woman digs her nails into the (supposedly) comforting arm of her husband and, in a howl of pain, declares the name of their new baby boy. The husband decides against protest this time, and so Champe is born. That's how I got my name.
Political Journalism
Isn't Florida solar-power central? They've got year-round sunshine! -- This is true: Florida has huge potential to capitalize on almost unrelenting sunshine for sustainable solar power. But the tricky part isn't about how to capture and utilize that power, but rather to avoid a stranglehold utility companies are trying to place on the energy industry as a whole in an effort to maintain the status quo
Things haven't gotten better in Flint? -- No, they have not, and this piece features twelve Flint residents whose stories paint a picture of a crisis that has torn away at families without reprieve
Katarina Rosenblatt was invited to a sleepover with a middle-school friend, but instead of party favors, she and a group of other girls were given alcohol and cocaine, and then sold for forty dollars to pedophilic human traffickers.
A suffocating sadness weighs heavily-unbearably-on much of America today. Many others have just felt a similar sadness lifted, if only temporarily....
What does that mean? -- A premium is the amount a policy-holder or sponsor (the consumer's employer, typically) must pay the healthcare company monthly for health insurance. This number is, on average, rising about 25% for the ACA's more popular plans, but consumers in most states will still be able to find cheaper options through the exchanges
Music Reviews
This is a difficult album to contain in writing. At the same time both enigmatic and simple like Ocean himself, it manages to push past R&B into something dreamier, something new for which there is no mold. There's an ambient quality to it all: sweet, warm-toned melodies over crystal hums only set a stage.
Q-Tip admits he isn't sure what the title, We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service means. Phife Dawg came up with it before he died. Whatever the initial intention, it's taken on a different meaning now, Phife's service having come to an end, Tribe having carried on and finished the album without him.
Freetown Sound is a diary, a scatter of thoughts from artist Dev Hynes about living life in the cultural margins of society: to be black, to be queer, to be unloved or feared without good reason. The album is, according to Hynes, one "for the under-appreciated" and somber synths and yearning saxophone runs confirm that description before a word is spoken.
Satire
The bullet was definitely in there. Blood spilled everywhere in gulps. Sure glad I wasn’t the one who got shot. I mean, the guy just crumpled to the floor like a popped balloon or something...
One Man Show “Did I ever tell you how I got to be so successful?” “No.” “I came from nothing, sport. I was dirt poor; my dad walked out on me when I was about your age. I worked hard in school—” “Wait, so grandma raised you by herself?” “Yes, that’s right. But like I was saying, I worked hard in school so that I could turn the tables. I worked a job to start saving money for college and got straight A’s throughout high school. I—” “Wow, so your teachers musta been real...
Identifiers Jerry slid through the thicket of bodies, his scaly green back glinting in the overhead light like a dried olive mud. At the counter, he ordered his usual: coffee, black. He let out a gravelly, hissing bellow as he slapped down his payment, thick nails clacking on the tiled countertop, signaling to the cashier that he was, in fact, there. She cooed gently in recognition. He stepped off to the side to wait, joining another fellow, this one a solid hunk of meat wrapped in...