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Hi! My name's Feini (sometimes known as Steph), and I use they/them pronouns. I'm a Philadelphia-based journalist, community organizer, and fishmonger working at the intersection of science, health, environment, technology, food, and social justice. In my spare time I'm also an avid recreational surfcaster!
Currently I work with Fishadelphia, helping run a youth-centered community seafood program in Philadelphia. You can learn more about that here.
As a storyteller I'm interested in exploring the intersections of science, power, and justice; centering perspectives not traditionally heard in science journalism; and expanding our definitions of "science" and "scientist." My organizing work is about supporting people's self-determination when it comes to meeting their health needs and connecting with their food and environment. I value subjective knowledge and lived experience.
Previously I worked as a reporter and producer for The Pulse, a public radio show about the people and places at the heart of health and science. Before that, I was a contributor to the The New York Times's Trilobites column, where I mostly covered genetics, evolution, and ecology. My work has also appeared in Popular Science, Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, TED, Audubon, and Motherboard, among other publications. You can see my journalism portfolio here.
I love to make stop-motion animations like this, this, and this one, and dream of someday creating a traveling puppet show.
In 2017, I was a science-journalist-in-residence at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, where I studied the ways knowledge- and science-driven economies can exacerbate inequality. I spent much of 2016 in one of China's biggest knowledge hubs, Shenzhen. There, I worked for a 3D printing start-up and a college consulting agency, learning about the city's tech scene and trend of sending students abroad against a backdrop of widening social stratification.
From 2014 to 2016 I lived in New York, doing a string of internships and earning a graduate degree in journalism from New York University. Before that, I worked for an arts and environmental education nonprofit, managed a couple book campaigns, and wrote and produced multimedia for the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Brown University's Swearer Center for Public Service.
I have a B.Sc. in environmental science from Brown. As an undergrad I did a lot of marine ecology research, from monitoring ghost crabs on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina to studying mangrove harvesting in a community of Bajau sea nomads in Indonesia. I did my thesis on the knotty relationship between fishing, herbivorous crabs, and carbon capture in Cape Cod salt marshes.
I spent my formative teenager years in suburban New Jersey, where I edited my high school's literary magazine and was really into AP Bio. Before that, I picked dandelions during recess and tore through books while dangling off furniture in precarious positions. I was born and spent my early childhood in Philadelphia, hanging out and watching a lot of Chinese satellite TV with my grandparents. To this day I have a somewhat geriatric predilection for slowness and simplicity, which I'm constantly trying to balance with being a voracious learner in an ever-quickening and evolving world.
You can find my CV here.
Currently I work with Fishadelphia, helping run a youth-centered community seafood program in Philadelphia. You can learn more about that here.
As a storyteller I'm interested in exploring the intersections of science, power, and justice; centering perspectives not traditionally heard in science journalism; and expanding our definitions of "science" and "scientist." My organizing work is about supporting people's self-determination when it comes to meeting their health needs and connecting with their food and environment. I value subjective knowledge and lived experience.
Previously I worked as a reporter and producer for The Pulse, a public radio show about the people and places at the heart of health and science. Before that, I was a contributor to the The New York Times's Trilobites column, where I mostly covered genetics, evolution, and ecology. My work has also appeared in Popular Science, Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, TED, Audubon, and Motherboard, among other publications. You can see my journalism portfolio here.
I love to make stop-motion animations like this, this, and this one, and dream of someday creating a traveling puppet show.
In 2017, I was a science-journalist-in-residence at Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, where I studied the ways knowledge- and science-driven economies can exacerbate inequality. I spent much of 2016 in one of China's biggest knowledge hubs, Shenzhen. There, I worked for a 3D printing start-up and a college consulting agency, learning about the city's tech scene and trend of sending students abroad against a backdrop of widening social stratification.
From 2014 to 2016 I lived in New York, doing a string of internships and earning a graduate degree in journalism from New York University. Before that, I worked for an arts and environmental education nonprofit, managed a couple book campaigns, and wrote and produced multimedia for the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Brown University's Swearer Center for Public Service.
I have a B.Sc. in environmental science from Brown. As an undergrad I did a lot of marine ecology research, from monitoring ghost crabs on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina to studying mangrove harvesting in a community of Bajau sea nomads in Indonesia. I did my thesis on the knotty relationship between fishing, herbivorous crabs, and carbon capture in Cape Cod salt marshes.
I spent my formative teenager years in suburban New Jersey, where I edited my high school's literary magazine and was really into AP Bio. Before that, I picked dandelions during recess and tore through books while dangling off furniture in precarious positions. I was born and spent my early childhood in Philadelphia, hanging out and watching a lot of Chinese satellite TV with my grandparents. To this day I have a somewhat geriatric predilection for slowness and simplicity, which I'm constantly trying to balance with being a voracious learner in an ever-quickening and evolving world.
You can find my CV here.