Shannon Brownlee is a freelance science writer whose stories and essays have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Atlantic Monthly, Wilson Quarterly, Time, Business Week, and Salon. She is the writer of "Vive La Difference!," an award-winning seven-minute documentary video. A former senior writer at U.S. News & World Report, her work was included in "The New Science Journalists," edited by Ted Anton and Rick McCourt (1995). She received the 1998 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award, for "The Quality of Mercy," which appeared in U.S. News & World Report. She was a Knight Fellow at Stanford University in 1992-93 and was invited to speak to a gathering of Nobel laureates at a symposium on "Big Science and Creativity," held in Stockholm in 1991. She lives in Annapolis, Md., with her husband and young son.