Clare is a freelance journalist and fact-checker specialising in science, health, and the environment.
Most recently, Clare spent three months as a journalist-in-residence at the Institute of Science & Technology Austria, where she explored the physics that threads our natural world. Her stories have been featured in the Best Australian Science Writing six years running.
Image: ISTA/Mathias Klötzler
Like all good stories, my career has taken a few twists and turns. I worked in biomedical research labs then traded my pipettes for a pen after a series of close encounters with a dark sky observatory, a turtle conservation project, and an MRI machine.
Now, my reporting covers everything from seafood fraud and seaweed carbon to cell skeletons, shipping emissions, and cigarette warning labels.
I’ve reported stories for Undark (republished in TIME), The Guardian, Nature, New Scientist, Australian Geographic, Quanta Magazine, C&EN, and more. I also write, fact-check and edit stories for ScienceAlert, helping to enlighten and entertain millions of readers each month with the latest science news.
2024 Universities Australia Award For Excellence In University Research Reporting (Fernanda Pedroso)
ISTA Journalists in Residence, 2025 (Mathias Kloetzler)
Writing from Dharawal Country on Australia’s east coast, I’m drawn to stories that reveal how science unfolds, the impact it has, and who scientists really are.
This includes reporting on research funding, policy, and practices, from initiatives changing the way science is done to issues that undermine or impede its progress.
In 2024, I joined the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, completing their six-month global training program for journalists covering climate change, run by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. I now write and edit stories with a much broader, systemic view of the factors that influence our health and our planet’s trajectory.
In 2025, I spent three months as a journalist in residence at the Institute of Science & Technology Austria (ISTA), where I explored the fundamental physics that underpins climate models and helps explain biological phenomena in ways we’re only just beginning to appreciate. It led to stories about the weirdest material inside animal cells, the internal lives of clouds, and what could be the first sparks of lightning.
Through it all, my work is grounded in my experience working in science research, where I learned from and worked with people and families involved in clinical trials and biomedical studies.
Awards & Anthologies
Best Australian Science Writing 2021–2026
Winner, 2024 Universities Australia Award for Excellence in University Research Reporting, for ‘Bacteria vs virus: the battle to defeat dengue’, published in Cosmos Magazine.
Finalist, 2026 Best Science Journalist, ITJournalism awards
Finalist, 2022 UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing, for ‘Rise of the preprint: how rapid data sharing during COVID-19 has changed science forever’, published in Nature Medicine.
Finalist, 2022 UK Medical Journalists Association’s Feature of the Year (Specialist Audience), for ‘Rise of the preprint: how rapid data sharing during COVID-19 has changed science forever’, published in Nature Medicine.
Professional affiliations:
Science Journalists Association of Australia, 2020–present
Committee member, 2023–2024
Professional guidelines I follow:
MIT Knight Science Journalism Science Editing Handbook
Sydney Morning Herald Guidelines for reporting medical research
Cancer Institute of NSW Writing about cancer guidelines
Croakey Health Media Talking Terminology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
2019 Frankin Women Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (Tim Levy)
2023 World Conference of Science Journalists
