Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Maggie Koerth (born 1981), formerly known as Maggie Koerth-Baker, is an American science journalist. She is a senior science editor at FiveThirtyEight and was previously a science editor at Boing Boing and a monthly columnist for The New York Times Magazine. Koerth is the author of the 2012 book Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us.
In 2009, Koerth co-authored the book Be Amazing: Glow in the Dark, Control the Weather, Perform Your Own Surgery, Get Out of Jury Duty, Identify a Witch, Colonize a Nation, Impress a Girl, Make a Zombie, Start Your Own Religion with Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur, the co-founders of Mental Floss.[3] The book was described as "a tongue-in-cheek self-improvement guide".[3] Koerth was an assistant editor at Mental Floss.[4]
She later joined Boing Boing, where she specialized in science blogging and was known for her ability to explain science coherently and understandably while keeping it interesting.[5][6] A piece Koerth wrote for Boing Boing in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster explaining nuclear power plant operations was featured in the anthology The Best Science Writing Online 2012.[7]
In June 2012, Koerth suffered a miscarriage. She wrote about her experiences with the social expectations and medical regulation surrounding abortions and miscarriage in a series of blog entries.[8][9][10]
In 2012, Koerth published Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, a book about the complexity of energy systems in the United States, the roadblocks to change, and the possibility of doing things differently.[14]
In 2016, Koerth began working for FiveThirtyEight as a senior science editor.[15]
In June 2014, Koerth was named one of two Nieman-Berkman Fellows in journalism innovation at Harvard University.[16] In 2017, she won the American Meteorological Society's Award for Distinguished Science Journalism in the Atmospheric and Related Sciences.[17]
Carl Zimmer has called her "one of the most innovative science writers at work today."[13]
