Sharon Tregaskis
I'm a Finger Lakes-based freelance reporter, writer, and editor covering the environment and academic health sciences. When I'm not at the keyboard, I farm. My favorite crops: baby ginger and purple potatoes.
Recent work:
A mathematician uses AI against cancer and gestational hazards:
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/mathematician-uses-ai-find-meaning-genomic-data
Psychiatric epidemiologists explore how structural racism affects disparities in schizophrenia:
An epidemiologist takes a slow-cooker approach to formulating big questions:
An environmental epidemiologist pivots to the evidence-based policies necessary to buffer the public health effects of climate change:
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/climate-change-spurs-scholars-pivot-evidence-based-policy
A scientist devotes her career to the progressive, fatal disease that plagued her family:
An ornithologist deconstructs human aging:
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/deconstructing-aging-pursuit-unified-theory-health
A visit to Minnesota introduces medical and public health students to tribal health insights:
https://tdi.dartmouth.edu/news-events/native-place
Providers, parents, and policy makers advocate for kids with advanced cancer:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/spring-2023/wrap-around-care-for-kids-with-cancer/
Through decolonization, an activist-scholar sets out to "change the order of the world":
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/activist-scholar-global-health-perspective
Pricing fixes to Medicare's prescription plan bear a Dartmouth grad student's touch:
https://tdi.dartmouth.edu/news-events/classroom-congress
A self-described "data nerd" makes the case for mental health equity:
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/data-nerd-change-agent
Columbia Med students champion health equity:
https://www.columbiamedicinemagazine.org/features/fall-2022/admirable-and-inspiring
Genetic clues could stop pediatric cancer before it starts:
https://dhgeiselgiving.org/stopping-cancer-it-starts
Global health systems can do better:
A health economist bridges the public and private sectors:
Do beauty products affect racial disparities in breast cancer?
Engineers tackle blood transfusion challenges in Kenya:
https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/a-wicked-challenge/
How zip code affects access to cancer care:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/spring2022/medicaid-a-partial-safety-net/
Engineers design better patches to heal pelvic injury:
https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/transforming-womens-health/
An open-source bioengineering project in Malawi helps patients breathe:
https://www.pittmed.pitt.edu/news/concentrate-oxygenate
An endowed professorship helps kids with cystic fibrosis breathe easier:
Study explores how surviving cancer affects Latinx and Hispanic people in the U.S.
Monica Lypson envisions the future of medical education:
One woman's death shines a spotlight on physician suicide:
http://www.columbiamedicinemagazine.org/features/spring-2021/one-us
The travails before the trials for a promising COVID-19 antibody treatment:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/panning-antibodies
After prison: What's positive psychology got to do with it?
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/05/engaged-learning-spotlight-beyond-incarceration
Behind the scenes of COVID-19 clinical trials:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/big-stakes-big-stats
Female cardiologists tackle the top cause of mortality among women in the U.S.:
http://www.columbiamedicinemagazine.org/features/fall-2020/broken-hearts
A medical school reckons with the Black Lives Matter movement:
To boost survival rates and expand treatment options, docs urge many with cancer to delay surgery:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/fall2020/worth-the-wait/
Evidence on acupuncture points to pain management benefits:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/Pages/Fall2020/Getting-to-the-Point.aspx
Advances in microscopy reveal insights to guide evidence-based drug design:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/another-look
RACE boosts prospects for kids with cancer:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/Pages/Winter2019-2020/Targeted-Treatments-for-Tots.aspx
After 20 years at the helm of Pitt's medical school, a visionary steps aside:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/man-behind-momentum
New CRISPR-based tools help scientists zero in on basic disease processes:
https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/future-gene-editing
Double transplants give patients a new lease on life and promise a breakthrough for the field:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/beyond-donor-match
The label every home DNA test ought to carry:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/Pages/Summer2019/Let-the-Buyer-Be-Aware.aspx
A genetic signature found in some tumors holds clues to better post-cancer care:
https://www.cancertodaymag.org/Pages/Spring2019/Lynch-Syndrome-Linked-to-More-Cancers.aspx
An ophthalmologist gets philosophical about the role of symmetry in vertebrate development:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/balance
A pediatrician leverages lessons from the front lines of the AIDS epidemic to bolster healthcare in Brooklyn:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/higher-bar
Are they really out there?
https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/are-we-alone/
Public health practitioners tackle trauma (and more):
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/publications/magazine
To reveal the role of genes in disease, researchers use CRISPR to build a better mouse:
An orthopaedic oncologist aims to improve on the treatments for sarcoma he received 25 years ago:
https://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/molecular-scalpel
With CRISPR, scientists can cut and paste the basic code of life. Will they use their newfound powers for good?
https://magazine.nd.edu/news/cut-and-paste/
Scientists implicate the "inocuous" virus that turns gluten into kryptonite in a kid's gut:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/broken-bread
For Raul Ruiz, MD, putting patients first meant running for Congress:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/door-door
Measures to promote social justice combat health disparities. And more:
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/publications/magazine
Docs in Washington Heights combat health disparities by putting community first:
http://ps.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/2017_Columbia_PS_Annual_Report.pdf
Urban planners put food systems on the map:
An array of unconventional farmers reflect on their agricultural legacy.
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/food-farms-and-family/
An urban apiary, by the books:
http://magazine.nd.edu/news/part-time-bee-keeper/
Public health scholars tackle the needs of modern-day refugees, the value of work after retirement, and more:
Clinicians aim to level the playing field with interventions tailored to their diverse patients:
http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Medical-Inequality.pdf
Good Bug, Bad Bug: Scientists dig into the ecology of the microbiome:
http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Microbes-Within-Us.pdf
Pennsylvania's heroin epidemic, by the numbers:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/forensics-epidemic
A heart for the health of African-Americans:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/jackson-wright
Trailblazers: Twentieth-century women scientists left their mark at Columbia U:
A scientist homes in on the immune system's reset button:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/reboot-and-rebuild
Community gardeners and their academic partners cultivate social justice:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2357
A team of big thinkers crafts algorithms to parse cause and effect:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/cause-and-effect
California's vaccination standards get a boost from a physician-turned senator:
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/class-acts-fall-2015
China partners with American public health scholars; autism gets a gut check:
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/publications/magazine
Baby ginger, the ultimate in container gardening:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/gardening/a20705827/how-to-grow-ginger/
In the year of Head Start's 50th anniversary, a look back at the theorist whose thinking shaped the program:
http://issuu.com/humec_comm/docs/hemag_spring2015?e=5110236/5957654
A neuroscientist investigates the mind in motion:
http://www.columbiamedicinemagazine.org/features/spring-2015/mind-motion
"Fake doctor" Ben Schwartz pursues the career to which he's uniquely suited:
http://www.columbiamedicinemagazine.org/webextra/fall-2014/node%3Atitle%5D-1
Surgeon Herb Zeh tackles oncology's highest mountain: pancreatic cancer.
http://www.pittmed.health.pitt.edu/story/class-acts-winter-2015
Public health confronts social inequality, incarceration, e-cigarettes and more:
http://issuu.com/columbiapublichealth/docs/columbia_public_health_2014/0
The Right Stuff: On Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1939&Itemid=56&ed=43
Med students chart their own course in a research-intensive training program:
http://issuu.com/cumcmedicalschool/docs/final_web_pdf_ps_ar_2014/1?e=0/9812056
On this three-generation family farm, horse power is a constant:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/suffolk-punch-draft-horse
The house wren's take-no-prisoners proposition:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/house-wren
Insights into the genetic roots of glioblastoma suggest a treatment to stop tumor growth in its tracks:
http://issuu.com/cumcmedicalschool/docs/2013_ps_annual_report
The Buck Stops Here: Cornell University confronts its cloven-hooved conundrum:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1725
A public health take on climate change, obesity prevention, and kids growing up in poverty:
http://issuu.com/columbiapublichealth/docs/cph_2013_hi-res
A behavioral ecologist with something to crow about:
http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/cover-story/in-the-company-of-crows
The long road to synthetic insulin, in 200 painstaking steps:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Winter_2012/darkness.pdf
A father-daughter team tackles the questions about her genome that establishment scientists couldn't answer:
Academics consider the downside of a helping hand:
http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/good-grief
Mammoth mollusks take Miami
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/mollusks-take-miami
Oh, deer! What can the matter be?
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/oh-deer?page=0,0
A designer champions green homes to welcome people of all ages and abilities:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1299&Itemid=9
The head of an "academic boot camp" helps diamonds in the rough reveal their sparkle:
http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/leading-by-example
The healthcare industry goes green:
http://www.organicgardening.com/living/green-health-care
In the garden, abundance comes in many guises:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/less-more-gardening-budget
Race matters in the quest for quality emergency medical care:
Stock a pond for fun, not frustration, by taking an ecological approach:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/fish-garden-ponds
When illness and physical disability strike, the risk of depression skyrockets. Geriatric psychiatrists seek solutions (p. 36):
http://weill.cornell.edu/news/publications/pdf/medicine2/2011-02.pdf
A spring paean to weeds in the ’burbs:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1049&Itemid=56&ed=23
Flour, the old-fashioned way:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=943&Itemid=56&ed=21
Two Upstate New York farmers dish about real food:
http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/from-farm-to-fork
Pitt geriatricians take a new tack on the graying of America:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Winter_2010/how_little.pdf
Domestic bliss gets a radical overhaul:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=893&Itemid=56&ed=20
Strategic landscaping slashes utility bills and boosts curb appeal:
http://organicgardening.coverleaf.com/organicgardening/20100809?pg=19#pg19
A NASA scientist and master beekeeper turns to his charges for clues to climate change:
http://archive.magazine.jhu.edu/2010/06/the-buzz-what-bees-tell-us-about-global-climate-change/
A medical research subject gets her due -- a half century after her cells launched a revolution:
Academic investigators tango with industry—very carefully:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Summer_2010/verycarefully.pdf
A Baltimore beekeeper takes a cue from her charges with a collective scheme to pollinate local gardens:
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=83§ionID=4&articleID=1468
Docs tackle the bulging waistlines of America's youth:
An upstate New York demo brings heat and light to the biomass debate (p. 19):
http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/news/magazine/upload/CEM-fall-2009.pdf
At the nadir of the Great Recession, entrepreneurs pick up their pace:
http://www2.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/enterprise/fall2009/index.cfm?action=feature&feature_id=2
A "fantastic" picture launches a career and takes the lethal bite from a rare form of leukemia (p. 39):
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Winter_2009/alumni.pdf
Women scientists at Weill Cornell confront the glass ceiling:
http://www.med.cornell.edu/featured/to-shatter-the-ceiling.html
The summer of rotten tomatoes:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=588&Itemid=1&ed=14
Scientist Cecilia Lo delves into the precursors of congenital heart defects:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Summer_2009/heart_matter.pdf
The salty tastes of the "quill pig":
http://organicgardening.coverleaf.com/organicgardening/200905/?pg=35#pg35
Cornell U. tackles climate neutrality:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=363&Itemid=9
Diabetes researcher Richard Bergman and his beard (p. 39):
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Spring_2009/alumni.pdf
For an exit strategy with style, see the skink:
http://organicgardening.coverleaf.com/organicgardening/200904/?pg=36
Carbon sequestration and the ancients:
http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296&Itemid=56&ed=9
The environmental hazards of healthcare in Baltimore and beyond:
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?ArticleID=1060&IssueID=65&SectionID=4
From a lab with a bay view, med students explore the scientific method:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Fall_2008/thefishandmedstudent.pdf
A "gypsy scientist" loves her lobsters:
http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine-archive/index.php/site/articles2/me_and_my_lobsters/
Pitt docs take the high road to bar conflicts of interest:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Spring_2008/newdiet.pdf
Plant for pollinators, save the honeybee:
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=58§ionID=4&articleID=879
Families who fund basic biomedical investigations take the long view (p. 32):
http://brownmedicinemagazine.org/pdfs/Brown_Medicine_Winter_2008.pdf
The cost of carbon for big business:
http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/enterprise/spring2008/features3_greenbegetgreen.html
Compostable coffins and other grave matters:
http://www.naturalburial.coop/2008/01/01/compost-in-peace/
Solar-powered homes hit the Mall:
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=55§ionID=4&articleID=807
At NYU, sustainability shifts from piecemeal to high priority:
https://www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine/issue09/feature_heat_apple.html
A psychiatrist trained in the Civil Rights Era"
https://news.weill.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/publications/2008_fall.pdf
A tilt-up wind tower spares birds and the view:
An eco sensibility bolsters patient care at Dartmouth's medical center:
http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/summer07/html/green.php
A Civil Rights activist reflects on four decades creating change in healthcare (pp. 26-31):
http://brownmedicinemagazine.org/pdfs/Brown_Medicine_Spring%202007.pdf
The question that drove the research career of reproductive endocrinologist Ernst Knobil:
http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/Winter_2006/inthetiming.pdf
Four engineering undergrads take a new tack on island toilets:
Cookbook author and food policy advocate Anna Lappé extends her family legacy:
http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/may/june-2006/what-we-eat.html
Contact me at: srtregaskis[at]gmail.com