Tara Haelle

With two decades of reporting experience under her belt, Tara Haelle has written for a range of publications, including National Geographic, New York times, Texas Monthly, Scientific American, NPR, Slate, Washington Post, Politico, Oprah Magazine, STAT, Self, Cure, Wired, Medscape, Muse Magazine, Pacific Standard, and Parents Magazine. She was formerly a Forbes contributor, a Medium Weekly Contributor, and a blogger at her evidence-based parenting blog Red Wine & Applesauce. As a health and science journalist, she specializes in reporting on vaccines, infectious disease, public health, pediatrics, prenatal and maternal health, women's health, mental health, misinformation/disinformation, nutrition, obesity, sleep medicine, and medical research in general. Yet she also loves writing about sharks and marine life and blogs for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute at Science & the Sea. She is especially passionate about helping parents understand the risks and benefits of vaccines and explaining scientific findings in ways that the average person can easily understand. In her children's books and writing, Tara loves making science and the world exciting, and she tends to have more ideas and stories flowing from her head than she has time to write them all. Tara is the Medical Studies Core Topic Leader for the Association of Health Care Journalists and a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She is also photographer and multimedia journalist, with images in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Chicago Sun-Times, and Women's Wear Daily. Tara previously taught high school English and journalism, taught journalism as an adjunct at Bradley University, and tutored in SAT, ACT, and GRE preparation for more than 15 years. Tara earned her masters in photojournalism from the University of Texas at Austin in the city that still holds her heart. Tara was once a world traveler — backpacking, hiking, train-hopping, and motorbiking through more than 40 countries on six continents while eating strange insects, climbing ancient ruins, and swimming with sharks — but that was before she became a mom. Now her trips are shorter, and she often takes her husband and sons on her local and international journeys. She is an avid scuba diver, former-but-soon-training-again triathlete, sometimes yogi, former ballroom dancer, and eternally curious observer of the human condition and the natural world.