Kristel Tjandra Watanabe is a David Nason Journalism Scholar in the science communication M.S. program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before pivoting her career into science journalism, she was a postdoctoral scholar in the emergency medicine department at Stanford. She has a doctorate in chemistry and a Bachelor’s degree in medicinal chemistry from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Kristel writes broadly about science, including the intersection between science and humanities. Some of her writings have appeared in Science, Mongabay, Drug Discovery News, The Monterey Herald, and The Stanford Daily. She was also an intern health reporter at KQED Radio, an NPR affiliate in San Francisco. She is currently a science writing intern at Live Science magazine.

In 2022, Kristel received the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Aside from her journalism training, she is a resident scholar at the STEM Advocacy Institute. She also volunteers with InterVarsity and the National Association of Science Writers.

You can read some of her articles on the ‘Writings’ page or follow her scientific work on the ‘Research’ page.

She’d be happy to connect via LinkedIn (/in/kristeltjandra/) or email at tjandra.kristel [at] gmail.com.