From Colombia to Nebraska to Idaho: Science reporter joins the Idaho Statesman news team
.JPG "Natalia Gutierrez Pinto shows off the first bird she captured for her doctoral dissertation in the mountains of Colombia.")
I am excited to be working over the summer as a science reporter for the Idaho Statesman. I will tell you a bit about myself and what I hope to bring for Idaho readers during my time at the newspaper.
I was born and raised in Bogotá, a city embedded in the mountains of Colombia, a beautiful country in the northwestern tip of South America. Diversity there — both biological and cultural — is inevitable, and my exposure to that diversity heavily influenced the person I am today.
I’ve known I wanted to be a scientist since I was a teenager, which is why I enrolled in the biology program of a local university in Bogotá. During my studies, I was introduced to the wonderful world of birds and bird watching, and I’ve been lucky enough to make a career studying their biology.
My eagerness to learn more about how birds can thrive in harsh environments is what brought me to the United States, when I enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. In the past four years, I have been trying to understand how mountain birds deal with the challenge of living in low-oxygen environments.
One of the best things about being a scientist is having the opportunity to discover new things and push the boundaries of knowledge. Thus, whenever I find out about some exciting science, I want everyone else, scientist or not, to feel the same excitement. I love explaining complex ideas to my non-scientific friends, and I have always wanted to write science news for the public.
This summer, thanks to the support of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Heising-Simons Foundation, my dream of becoming a science journalist has come true. Although I was hoping to join the newsroom and my fellow Idaho Statesman reporters at the beginning of June, my plans, as everyone else’s, had to be adjusted because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Even while working from home — in Nebraska — I will strive to write stories that both spark the curiosity of Idahoans and bring local research to a spotlight. Science is everywhere, so I also want to tell stories that explain the science behind important issues directly affecting your communities. I will even produce some of my stories in Spanish, hoping to reach the growing Hispanic community in Idaho.
Please contact me if there is any science-related topic you’d like me to explore.
