Andreas von Bubnoff – Journalist in Residence 2019

German freelance science journalist Andreas von Bubnoff was the HITS “Journalist in Residence” 2019. He started his stay in July and finished it by the end of September.

As a freelance science journalist, he has spent most of his professional life in the U.S. His works have appeared in English-language publications such as “WIRED,” “The Atlantic,” “Quanta Magazine,” “The Guardian,” and “Nature” as well as in the German press (FAZ, DIE ZEIT, and “RiffReporter”).

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Andreas von Bubnoff has always been fascinated with science. After giving talks and guided tours on wildlife and the environment on an island off the German coast, he studied biology in Freiburg, Germany. He continued his studies in the U.S. in Seattle and Irvine (California) and received his doctorate with a thesis in developmental biology. He now teaches and researches international science communication and crossmedia journalism at the English-language Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Kleve, Germany.

During his time at HITS, von Bubnoff already got in touch with various groups. “I am particularly interested in current developments in machine learning and the reproducibility of research results.” To learn more about standards and reproducibility, he attended the COMBINE meeting in July 2019. In addition, he met with colleagues such as the editorial staff of “Spektrum der Wissenschaft” and editors of the scientific journals “EMBO Journal” and “Molecular Systems Biology,” who also reside in Heidelberg.

In his internal seminar „Getting the story, and getting it right: How science journalists find and report stories“ Andreas discussed together with the HITS researchers how good science journalism works. On 7 October, Bubnoff gave his public talk with the title „Auf der Suche nach der Wahrheit – Wissenschaftsjournalismus in Zeiten von post-truth und reproducibility crisis“ (translation: “Searching the truth – science journalism in times of post-truth and reproducibility crisis”.