Bryn Nelson is a Seattle-based freelance writer, author, and editor with an avid interest in biology, biomedicine, ecology, green technology, and unconventional travel destinations. After receiving his PhD in microbiology from the University of Washington, Bryn shifted course to become a journalist. Since then, he has written for more than 30 publications ranging from the New York Times to Science News Explores.
Bryn received a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and interned at The Californian in Salinas, California, and at Newsday in Melville, New York. In 2000, he accepted a staff position at Newsday as a member of the science desk, where he spent the next seven years writing extensively about genetics, stem cell research and cloning, global warming, evolution, ecology, and conservation.
While at Newsday, Bryn was one of four principal writers on the award-winning, 13-part “Long Island: Our Natural World” series, which was subsequently converted into a field guide. He then initiated a monthly “In the Field” series on local ecology research. Bryn also wrote “Saving Bobby,” a multiple award-winning, 12,000-word feature about the frantic effort to save a toddler whose father had accidentally driven over his head.
Since 2007, Bryn has been a freelance writer and editor. Beyond writing for a range of print and online publications, he edited two chapters on microbiology and food safety for the bestselling six-volume Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and contributed a chapter to The Science Writers’ Handbook.
His book Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure, has been hailed as a surprising, witty, and sparkling exploration of the teeming microbiome of possibility in human feces. Flush is both an urgent exploration of the world’s single most squandered natural resource, and a cri de coeur (or cri de colon?) for the vast, hidden value in our “waste.”
In his spare time, Bryn enjoys photography, singing, and renovating the 1906 Craftsman house where he lives with his husband, Geoff, and their energetic boxador, Piper.