Last Wednesday, Elie Dolgin (BSc ’03), the associate news editor at the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, returned to McGill to speak about science journalism and reflect on his time at McGill.

“I did my undergrad in this very building. If you go upstairs, you’ll see one of the window boxes-I did this one on carboniferous flora,” he said, standing in front of an amphitheatre of about 30 students and alumni.

Although Dolgin briefly wrote for the Daily during his time at McGill, he did not think he would pursue a career in journalism. After graduating and being rejected from a job in a natural history museum, he decided to pursue a PhD in evolutionary genetics at the University of Edinburgh.

“I didn’t even want to go to grad school-it’s terrible to say, but I got in, so I went,” he said. 

At Edinburgh, he began a science broadcast on student radio, and eventually moved on to a monthly podcast for his department. Writing, however, was a serendipitous discovery.

“My dad’s quite active in his local synagogue, and he wanted me to give the sermon when I was back for his 60th birthday,” Dolgin said. “I gave it on the only thing I knew, which was evolutionary biology. I spoke about the section where Jacob divides his inheritance between his sons, but he doesn’t do it equally, and I [approached it from an evolutionary] perspective. Jacob married two of his cousins and two of his non-cousins. From an evolutionary standpoint, he actually gave out his inheritance better.”

According to Dolgin, this talk led to a promising connection.

“I gave this talk, and a professor came up to me and said, ‘I never thought I’d hear about evolutionary biology in a synagogue. You should come to the Banff Science Communication program.’ It was sort of on a whim,” he said.

Dolgin said he soon realized he had found his passion.

“For the last six months of my PhD, I probably spent more time pitching science stories than writing my thesis,” he said.

At Nature Medicine, where Dolgin arrived following stints at The Scientist and Nature, he covers issues such as ethics, politics, funding, and business, amongst other medicine-related fare.

To those interested in a similar career, he suggested getting a foot in the door by applying for internships, such as those offered by his magazine, as well as the media fellowship offered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dolgin also emphasized that students who want to become science journalists need to pitch stories.

“The thing I’m so surprised with when looking at applications is how few people have gone beyond writing for their science writing program’s publication or graduate thesis,” he said. “They [could have] just gone and pitched it to a newspaper or a magazine.”

Some attendees, however, were unsure of the relevance of Dolgin’s talk.

“I like the way he spoke, but I don’t know how applicable the content was to people in Canada,” Natasha Campbell, a recent graduate of McGill’s psychiatry program, said.

Dolgin, who holds a U.S. passport, admitted that the situation in Canada isn’t promising.

“I’d love to work here, but I like having a staff job, and it’s hard in Canada right now,” he said.

After the presentation, Dolgin stayed behind to answer some further questions. When a young woman asked which magazines would be best to write for first, he thought for a moment, and then explained that it was more important to find an interesting story.

The talk was organized by Science Outreach, the science faculty’s effort to disseminate information and raise interest in science within both McGill and the wider community, and was generally well received.

“I thought [the talk] was really informative,” Sabrina Ali, a U1 MSc, said. “It’s unusual to hear so much tangible advice.”