I tend to roam, writing one day about luminous creatures of the deep sea, then spacecraft that can spot wildfires, then soft bedrock that destabilized a great cathedral. I love history. It informed a story I wrote about eclipses that opened with the sudden disappearance of the sun 2,600 years ago. In looking for good stories, I’ve reported on astronomy, math, biology, physics, climatology, space exploration, oceanography, geology and archaeology, as well as such technologies as computer chips and cellphones.
With some regularity, I write about global threats rooted in science, like the spread of nuclear arms and the weaponization of space. I also report on the health of science itself — and its ailments — because it is central to modern life. I’ve written about scientific fraud, institutional errors and concerns among scientific leaders that public support is declining.
I grew up in Milwaukee. At the University of Wisconsin, I studied biology, worked in a medical lab, wrote science stories for a university news bureau and received a master’s degree in the history of science. Starting in 1978, I reported for Science, the weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, based in Washington. There I learned about nuclear arms and in 1981 won a journalistic prize for reporting on how a single blast could upend U.S. war plans.
After joining The Times in 1983, I worked on teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 1986 for coverage of the “Star Wars” antimissile program and in 1987 for reporting on the Challenger space shuttle disaster. I’ve written or cowritten eight science books. I plunged a mile and a half beneath the waves for “The Universe Below” and gained knowledge that informed my reporting on the 2023 Titan submersible disaster.
Like all Times reporters, I’m committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in The Times’s Ethical Journalism Handbook. I work hard to be fair, to look at issues from all sides and to get my facts straight. I also welcome reader comments — especially ones pointing to errors — and pride myself on being able to admit my mistakes, and correct them. Ultimately, my aims in reporting are the same as those of scientific research: to seek the truth, no matter what.
I’ve always tried to give readers as much information as possible about my sources. Now, links in my online stories let me add details not only about my human sources but my research materials as well. I see the practice as valuable because it casts light on how I go about my job and can deepen the shared experience of following the facts.
Email: broad@nytimes.com
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As a group of historians and a top biographer square off, proponents of a middle path see a tangled life in which the superstar of science was, and was not, a true Communist at the same time.
By William J. Broad
A former Coast Guard specialist’s testimony capped two weeks of hearings into the implosion of a submersible that killed five during an attempt to explore the Titanic.
By William J. Broad
Nuclear experts see Tehran as facing up to a year of hard work to master the knotty basics of building a deliverable atom bomb.
By William J. Broad
Contrary to public reports last year, the passengers probably had no idea that the vessel was about to implode.
By William J. Broad
Two days of reporting and testifying by experts during a U.S. Coast Guard inquiry challenge the idea that the submersible’s passengers knew they were facing death.
By William J. Broad and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Former employees of the company, OceanGate, said they worried about its practices long before a fatal implosion that killed five people. A Coast Guard hearing resumes on Tuesday.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and William J. Broad
Scientists in an expedition to the Mid-Atlantic ocean ridge lifted almost a mile of precious rocks from beneath an exotic feature linked to life’s possible beginning.
By William J. Broad
The brainy machines are predicting global weather patterns with new speed and precision, doing in minutes and seconds what once took hours.
By William J. Broad
An M.I.T. physicist, he engineered an East-West deal that reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time.
By William J. Broad
A former national security adviser says Washington “must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world,” while critics say the move could incite a global arms race that heightens the risk of war.
By William J. Broad