Ed Yong (1999) wins Pulitzer Prize

Pembroke alumnus Ed Yong (1999) has been awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

The judges recognised Ed 'For a series of lucid, definitive pieces on the COVID-19 pandemic that anticipated the course of the disease, synthesized the complex challenges the country faced, illuminated the U.S. government’s failures and provided clear and accessible context for the scientific and human challenges it posed.' These included: How Science Beat the Virus, Where Year Two of the Pandemic Will Take Us, America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further, and How the Pandemic Will End.

Ed is based in Washington DC and is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers science. His stories have featured in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, the New York Times, Nature, New Scientist and Scientific American. In 2016 he published his first book, I Contain Multitudes, which looks at partnerships between animals and microbes. His forthcoming second book, An Immense World, will look at the sensory worlds of other animals.

Ed read Natural Sciences at Pembroke, graduating in 2002. Read more of Ed's articles.

Watch Ed's TED talk about mind-controlling parasites!