Chris Berdik
Chris Berdik
I'm a journalist who writes about science, health, technology, and education, including two books, Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World--And How We Can Take It Back, about the power of noise and soundscapes (Norton, May 2025) and Mind Over Mind: The Surprising Power of Expectations (Penguin, 2012), about the placebo effect in medical and non-medical contexts. Previously, I was a staff editor at the Atlantic Monthly, a research editor at the investigative-journalism magazine, Mother Jones, and a senior writer covering science and medicine for Boston University's daily news website and alumni magazine, Bostonia. ​​​​​​
My freelance writing has appeared in Popular Science, Wired, New Scientist, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, Politico, Slate, the Boston Globe, High Country News, Virginia Quarterly Review, Christian Science Monitor, Boston magazine, and the Daily Beast, among other outlets. While I specialize in magazine features, I've also written education-technology columns for The Hechinger Report, authored blog posts and reports for nonprofits such as the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, and edited articles for Harvard Public Health magazine.
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I've been awarded reporting grants from the Pulitzer Center, the Solutions Journalism Network, and the Society of Environmental Journalists, a career development grant from the National Association of Science Writers, and a reporting fellowship from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. Click here for a full CV.
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