Hi, I’m Alissa Greenberg, an independent journalist, editor, writer, and science communicator based in the Bay Area and Boston. Although I'm a proud generalist, I report most frequently at the intersection of science, culture, and history. In addition to writing and editing long and short features, I research, write, and edit research grant reports, travel and B2B content, and ghostwriting collaborations, while also supporting other writers and academics on their own projects. I’m forever curious, with a sharp and abundant story sense, an eye for telling details, and a healthy respect for deadlines.

I’ve been a writer as long as I can remember and a journalist for 15 years. I started my journalism career at age 16, reporting on high school swimming for my local newspaper for $10 per article. My next gig was contributing to The Sampan, Boston Chinatown’s bilingual Mandarin-English community newspaper. More recently, I worked as a contributing writer at the late, great Pacific Standard; as a staff writer at PBS NOVA, reporting on ice cream physics, manatee hospitals, and why exercise might prevent Alzheimer's; and as the front-of-book editor for Bay Nature magazine in California. Along with my regular contributions to The San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate, and Poets & Writers, my work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Smithsonian, Alta, and more.

Journalism runs in my family. My grandmother graduated from journalism school in 1946, only to be turned away from newsroom jobs explicitly reserved for men. That history informs how I approach my work and whose stories I tell: I gravitate toward hidden histories and stories on the margins and spend my days talking to prison journalists, Indigenous bioethicists, and undocumented poets. Otherwise, my reporting varies as widely as my interests, covering topics ranging from the biochemistry of animal venom to the origins of rocky road ice cream, and from the history of tattooing in Massachusetts to the punk club keeping West Coast Blues history alive. I love finding places to incorporate human detail and the element of surprise: the package of melt-resistant peanut M&Ms in a firefighter’s backpack, a library of trees destined to become books, children learning over the radio in the polio era, a koala's fingerprint.

I’m especially interested in human stories that explore how communities cultivate belonging or support each other, as well as history that helps us understand how we got here. Whether I’m highlighting how the Oakland Black Cowboys have kept their traditions alive; telling the story of how a dentist, a musician, a librarian, and an artist dug up the lost history of the first West Coast flight; or exploring how archaeologists use dog sniffer techniques to find lost cremains in homes destroyed by wildfire, I believe in journalism’s power to serve as a bulwark against despair through clarity, connection, and empathy.

When I’m not on deadline, you can usually find me listening to live music, reading by the ocean, or enjoying one of the quirky cultural events I love to cover—giant pumpkin boat or sand castle competition, anyone?