About

I spent nearly 25 years as a reporter at The Boston Globe. Before that, I covered Latin America and national security issues for a range of publications, including The Miami Herald and The San Francisco Chronicle. Over the past 15 years, I have focused on covering environmental issues with an emphasis on climate change, for the Globe and as a documentary filmmaker.

Many of my films have focused on climate change, looking closely at its impact on the marine ecosystem in the Gulf of Maine. My films include Sacred Cod, Lobster War, Gladesmen, Entangled, and Inundation District, all of which address the effects of climate change. My work has sought to show how climate change is not some distant, abstract threat, but one that presents a clear and present danger here, in New England, and beyond.

BU Highlights

I’m the director of creative works at the Center on Media Innovation for Social Impact (MISI). Our goal is to help support and inspire work related to how we can make democracy more representative, responsive, and effective. This covers many subjects, including climate change and environmental justice. We’re also building a fellowship program to bring in people we admire — folks with thoughtful projects and ideas. We hope this will create a community that sparks more ideas and supports creative work that might not otherwise get made or seen.

I launched two new courses since becoming a professor at BU. One is on climate or environmental journalism, and the other focuses on science journalism. I hope the classes inspire students to address these issues in their careers. And I’m already beginning to see that happen, which is really heartening.

I’m also an affiliated faculty member with the Institute for Global Sustainability.

Beyond BU

I got into filmmaking years ago during my time as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. For a class I was taking, I was making a short film about the first person with dwarfism to run the Boston Marathon. The reporting brought me to the finish line the year of the bombings and led to my first film.

Advice for BU Students

If you're interested in environmental issues, I recommend taking my class in environmental journalism. You’ll learn how climate change is having a growing impact on people all over the world and how journalists can make a difference by casting light on the issues. I also recommend reading “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells, which is a book about how life on Earth is changing as temperatures surge. Another compelling read is “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson, a novel that imagines a dystopian future and what might happen if we don’t reduce emissions soon.