Ph.D., Emily Jane Willingham

Emily Willingham is author of PHALLACY: LIFE LESSONS FROM THE ANIMAL PENIS (Avery, 2020) and THE TAILORED BRAIN (Basic Books, 2021). Her writing has been published online at the New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, Discover, NOVA, Science, and others. She is also co-author with Tara Haelle of the award-winning book, The Informed Parent (Perigee Books/Penguin), and the author of The Complete IG to College Biology.

Her writing focuses on the intersection where society, science, and biases meet. She specializes in examining social perspectives on mental health, sexuality and gender, and parenting, with close attention to unconscious motivations and a practical perspective.

Willingham is the 2014 recipient of the John Maddox Prize for standing up for science, a joint initiative of Nature and the Kohn Foundation, that rewards an individual who has faced difficulty and hostility in the course of promoting sound, evidence-based science on a matter of public interest. She also served on the board of the National Association of Science Writers, for which she chaired the Fairness Committee and co-chaired the membership committee. She is a recipient of an Association of Health Care Journalists fellowship award.

Willingham earned her bachelor's degree in English and her PhD in biological sciences at The University of Texas at Austin and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in urology at the University of California-San Francisco. She has taught students of all ages, primarily as a university instructor in scientific writing and biology, focusing on physiology, anatomy, developmental biology, genetics, and general science.

She has been struck by lightning once personally, on a ridge in Yellowstone N.P., and also has once been a car that was struck by lightning and in an airplane that was zapped. In other words, do not stand too near her.

Willingham keeps busy with her family, including an awkwardly comical rescue dog and a trio of sons whom she encourages to keeping asking "Why?" unless she's typing. When she's not answering their questions or her own, she's reading, hiking, eating, drinking, and generally being merry and likely argumentative. You can find her on Twitter @ejwillingham, possibly too often, and read more about her on Wikipedia.