Michael Specter has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998 and has written about agricultural biotechnology, the global aids epidemic, avian influenza, malaria, the world's diminishing freshwater resources, synthetic biology, geoengineering, new ways to edit DNA with crispr, and the implications of gene-drive technology. Previously, he worked at the New York Times as its senior foreign correspondent based in Rome and he served as the paper's Moscow bureau chief. Before joining the Times, he served as the Washington Post's national science reporter and, later, as its New York bureau chief. He has twice received the Global Health Council's annual Excellence in Media Award: in 2002, for "India's Plague," and in 2005, for "The Devastation," about the ethics of testing H.I.V. vaccines in Africa. He is the author of "Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives," which received the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking. His piece "Against the Grain" won a 2015 James Beard Award, in the Food and Health category. His forthcoming book on the gene-editing revolution will be published in 2020.