| Wendy Zukerman | |
| Notable Works: | Science Vs |
Wendy Zukerman is an Australian-American science journalist and podcaster. She is best known as the host of Science Vs, a program that dissects areas of scientific controversy and public confusion.
Zukerman was born in the United States but raised in Melbourne, Australia. She attended Monash University and received a biomedical science and law degree.[1] [2]
She has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on the documentary television program, Catalyst, and the consumer affairs television program The Checkout.[3] Additionally, she has written for many different publications including New Scientist magazine,[4] Cosmos magazine,[5] The Age, The Australian, and Saturday Paper.[6]
In 2014 and 2015, she spoke at Storyology, an annual festival of journalism and media. In March 2018, she spoke at a SXSW, in a panel event called, "What Podcasts Ate for Dinner".[7] [8]
In 2021, Zukerman was amongst the first nominees of The Podcast Academy's new "Ambie" awards. She was one of seven nominees for the Best Host award.[9]
Since October 2015, her podcast Science Vs has been produced by Gimlet Media, a Brooklyn-based digital media company.[10] [11] [12] The show was previously produced and distributed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as part of ABC Radio's First Run podcast program.[13] [14] The podcast works on communicating science to non-scientists. The show takes a myth-busting approach, and topics on the show generally come from controversial topics or current events. Episode topics have included immigration, gun control, ghosts, climate change, acne, and antidepressants, among others.[14] [15] [16] [17] Zukerman has said that the idea for Science Vs came from news headlines about Gwyneth Paltrow wanting women to participate in a "health practice" of vaginal steaming, which she thought could combine science with humor.[18] Zukerman summarized her podcast's position against false equivalences, saying, "If there's a 95 percent consensus among scientists, you report the consensus."[15]