About
R. John Davenport is currently the associate director of the Brain Science Program at Brown University in Providence, RI. The Brain Science Program is an interdisciplinary group of over 100 brain science researchers at Brown, from neuroscientists to physicists, cognitive scientists to engineers. As associate director, John coordinates grant proposal writing and communicates research findings within and beyond Brown, among other activities. Before coming to Brown, John was associate editor and news writer for Science Magazine's Science of Aging Knowledge Environment, an online resource that focuses on the basic biology of aging. He wrote current news and feature stories, edited news stories, and participated in development of the Web site. Unfortunately, SAGE KE closed its doors in June 2006 when funding dried up, but the site's content lives on in archive form.John Davenport received a B.A. in chemistry from Williams College and a Ph.D. in chemistry (specializing in molecular biology and biophysics) from the University of Oregon. After spending 6 years in a dark room watching tiny beads on a video screen, he decided to forsake the lab bench for a career in science writing. A 1999 AAAS mass media fellowship at Newsweek provided a crash course in journalism--literally: When John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s private plane disappeared that August, the Newsweek staff stayed up all night to rewrite that week's issue. After freelancing for Science Magazine's daily news Web site, ScienceNOW, and serving a six-month stint as an intern at Science, John Davenport joined the SAGE KE team in 2001.
As a science writer, John Davenport applies his liberal arts training and scientific experience to a range of topics including ecology and evolutionary biology, stem cell research, neuroscience, and other areas of basic biological and biomedical research.