More About the Author
William J. Broad is a best-selling author and a senior writer at The New York Times. In more than thirty years as a science journalist, he has written hundreds of front-page articles and won every major journalistic award in print and film. A writer of unusual depth and breadth, he has reported on everything from exploding stars and the secret life of marine mammals to the spread of nuclear arms and why the Titanic sank so fast. His journalism is featured in The Best American Science Writing. The yearly anthologies include articles of his on the reversal of the earth's magnetic field and the atmospheric history of carbon dioxide.
He joined The Times in 1983 and before that worked in Washington for Science, the magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, doing so from 1978 to 1983.
Broad has won two Pulitzer Prizes with Times colleagues, as well as an Emmy and a DuPont. He won the Pulitzers for coverage of the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the feasibility of antimissile arms. In 2002, he won the Emmy (PBS Nova) for a documentary that detailed the threat of germ terrorism, based on his best-selling book Germs. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005 for articles written with Times colleague David E. Sanger on nuclear proliferation. In 2007, he shared a DuPont Award (The Discovery Channel) from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for the television documentary, "Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?"
Broad is the author or co-author of seven books, most recently The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi (The Penguin Press, 2006). Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War (Simon & Schuster, 2001) was a number-one New York Times bestseller. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His other titles include The Universe Below: Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea (Simon & Schuster, 1997); Teller's War: The Top-Secret Story Behind the Star Wars Deception (Simon & Schuster, 1992); and Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science (Simon & Schuster, 1982).
Broad's reporting has taken him to Paris and Vienna, Brazil and Ecuador, Kiev and Kazakhstan. In December 1991, he was among the last Westerners to see the Soviet hammer and sickle flying over the Kremlin.
Broad's media appearances include Larry King Live, The Charlie Rose Show, The Discovery Channel, Nova, The History Channel, and National Public Radio. His speaking engagements have ranged from the U.S. Navy in Washington, to the Knickerbocker Club in New York, to the Monterey Aquarium in California. He has also given talks at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
Broad earned a masters degree in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and lives with his wife and children in the New York metropolitan area.
