Jennifer Cutraro

Contributing Editor

Science writer Jenny Cutraro spent her elementary school years bringing home report cards declaring her to be “too talkative during class.” Today, she channels that love of talking into a career that’s all about sharing science with others. She’s the founder and director of Science Storytellers, a public program that puts kids in the role of science journalists. A longtime contributor to Science News Explores, she also has written for The Boston Globe, The LA Times, Science, National Geographic News, and other outlets. At WGBH in Boston, she developed an award-winning collection of education resources for the Emmy-nominated PBS KIDS series Plum. Landing. She also has produced science education resources for PBS Learning Media, NOVA Science NOW, and The New York Times Learning Network. Jenny has a B.A. in biology from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., a M.S. in biology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and studied science journalism at Boston University in Massachusetts. A Midwesterner at heart, Jenny hails from Milwaukee and now lives in the Boston area with her husband, their daughters, and two small furry carnivores that meow an awful lot.

All Stories by Jennifer Cutraro

  1. Animals

    Diving, rolling and floating, alligator style

    Alligators use the muscles around their lungs in a surprising way—to help them move quickly and smoothly through the swamps and waterways in which they live.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Mind-reading machine

    Researchers have used brain scans to measure how the brain "sees" pictures—and to try to predict what a person is looking at.

  3. Environment

    Fear Matters

    Halloween can scare kids and make them act strange. But animals and ecosystems respond to fear every day of the year.

  4. Animals

    A dangerous meal

    An Australian snake preys on poisonous frogs by striking them with venom and then waiting for the frog defenses to break down.

  5. Space

    Sun Got Your Tail?

    Solar storms can tear the tail right off a comet.

  6. Environment

    Where have all the bees gone?

    More than one-fourth of the honeybees in the United States have disappeared since last fall, and scientists are trying to figure out why.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Don’t Eat That Sandwich!

    If you drop a sandwich on the floor, how quickly does it pick up bacteria?

  8. Animals

    Living in the desert

    Animals adapt in unusual ways to survive in some of the hottest, driest places on Earth.

  9. Animals

    A seabird’s endless summer

    Food plays an important part in the migration of seabirds and songbirds.

  10. Tech

    Microbes at the Gas Pump

    Bacteria and other organisms can turn waste plant material into fuel for cars.