When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down labs across the country, Niko McCarty’s research career at the California Institute of Technology was abruptly halted. The then-bioengineering Ph.D. student was stranded in limbo, not knowing what his next steps should be.

Yet, McCarty saw a bright opportunity ahead of him. Leveraging his deep scientific knowledge, he moved across the country to attend NYU’s graduate journalism program where he rediscovered his love for science writing. 

McCarty spoke with WSN about what inspired him to become a journalist, and how he found his audience. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WSN: What is your first memory of writing?

McCarty: I was a very voracious reader, and I would read three books a week. After school, I would read for hours every night, but I wasn’t writing myself. I wasn’t really creating at that point, and I didn’t know how to write. When I was assigned school essays, they were very generic and boring in general. 

Throughout his childhood in the Chicago suburbs, McCarty felt called to write but kept this deep-seated passion a secret from his parents. When college approached, McCarty was hesitant to pursue writing as his parents had offered to pay his tuition if he studied a “worthwhile” science subject.

While pursuing a degree in biochemistry at the University of Iowa, McCarty was inspired by Iowa City’s creative writing culture as a UNESCO City of Literature. He was working for a local magazine, Little Village, where he published his first article on the corrosion of the local bee population.

After graduating, McCarty enrolled in Caltech’s Ph.D. program in bioengineering, where he studied protein-genome binding, a highly challenging project that many scientists have struggled with prior. Soon after, the pandemic completely derailed his plans, locking him out of the labs and halting his experiments indefinitely.

WSN: How would you describe your experience moving to New York for graduate school?

McCarty:  I was afraid to tell my Ph.D. advisor that I was going to leave because I had spent years in his lab. I was scared of leaving friends behind, scared of leaving my apartment and moving across the country. 

NYU got me my first job as a staff journalist, which basically set me up for everything. Because they require internships, I found my first writing mentor at NYU. I usually tell people, you don’t have to do a master’s in science journalism to work as a science journalist. I think NYU is probably the best in terms of setting you up for real-world success and how hands-on they are.

Amid the chaos, McCarty sought opportunities outside the lab. His first instinct was to turn his love for writing from a hobby into a career. After emailing the NYU science journalism graduate program director, he moved to New York City to launch himself into writing.

Nonetheless, the isolation that McCarty experienced at Caltech remained after he moved into his small Lower East Side apartment with his wife. Since classes were online due to the pandemic lockdown, he dedicated all of his time towards data journalism projects, where he learned to create data graphics and build interactive articles. 

It was during this period in 2021 that he caught onto the growing popularity of Substack, where he sent out newsletters sharing biology research papers that he found interesting. In his first year, he gained 3,000 followers of mostly scientists.

WSN: How did you feel when you first started your Substack blog?

McCarty: It’s extremely daunting to put yourself out there. But once you do that, you stop caring about it and it’s not a big deal anymore. It’s the same with starting a blog and sending out essays — of course, you’re worried that people will think your take is stupid. The pressure is higher when your audience becomes bigger. But at the same time, you’re less concerned about sending something out in the world, even though you get much more negative feedback, because now people are actually reading. 

In 2022, as subscriber growth plateaued, McCarty shifted from sharing links to writing full articles. He noticed that many people wrote essays on similar research and discoveries that he felt strongly about. 

McCarty’s Substack caught the attention of the CEO of Asimov, who recruited him to run the marketing team for the biotechnology company, that specializes in genetic tools and models. He later proposed to launch Asimov Press, an editorially independent science journalism publication focusing on new biology research findings and technology inventions.

He wanted Asimov Press to cover both highly technical scientific discoveries while educating the public — essentially turning science concepts into accessible and informative stories. Bridging this gap meant that McCarty’s team had to confront a major dilemma — figuring out how to deliver both in-depth science knowledge while making complex biology concepts digestible for new readers. 

WSN: What do you hope the future of science journalism will look like?

McCarty: I am increasingly drawn to very experimental reporting. For example, with AI coding tools, you can make really interesting interactive articles without needing to understand how to code. I would like to see deep science reporting become more interactive, more digital and more community-driven, where people can comment or highlight things in your article that are confusing.  

We’re going to see a reversion to books where people want to hold books in their hands. That’s why Asimov Press still prints books. We have sold out of every book we’ve ever printed because there’s a huge demand for print still. I think swimming against the tide in interesting ways will yield really compelling outcomes in journalism. 

Contact Kaitlyn Sze Tu at [email protected].