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Meet the Faces of SLAC Today

The members of the Communications Group who produce SLAC Today have science backgrounds, an immoderate love of words and a thirst for learning.

It takes a team to convey the vibrancy of the lab's people, science and events every day in SLAC Today. Read on to catch a glimpse of the people behind the publication.

Rain or shine, good news or bad, Editor Kelen Tuttle is at her desk at 7 a.m. every morning to put the finishing touches on SLAC Today. She's the backbone of the publication and spends the majority of her day scouting out stories, writing, editing, collecting images and laying out each issue. She thrives on the flurry of daily activity, learning new things about the lab and being in the know.

On the rare day that Tuttle is not at the lab, Brad Plummer takes over the reins. Between other duties, he writes articles about the thriving new world of photon science. He excels at unveiling what makes an experiment and an experimenter tick, and constantly seeks to provide fresh images for SLAC Today.

Heather Rock Woods has been writing about science at the lab for several years. Although she works only part time, she packs her hours with back-to-back interviews and turns out headline stories on a regular basis. Woods loves interviewing people to learn how things work, and describing research in ways that non-scientists can understand.

The afternoon before publication, Melinda Lee goes over every story with a keen eye, correcting grammar and organizational flow and catching undue use of technical jargon. Knowing that people around the world will be reading each edition is exciting and a cause for careful copy editing.

Science writing interns infuse fresh air into SLAC Today's web pages. This quarter, full-time intern Alison Drain has written about walking safety, the design of advanced detectors and almost everything in between. Also this winter, Marcus Woo comes to SLAC two days a week from the science writing graduate program at UC Santa Cruz. He enjoys the variety of stories that emerge from the lab, and is enthusiastic to be learning about the world of particle physics.

—Heather Rock Woods, February 27, 2007

Above image: Clockwise from top left: Heather Rock Woods, Kelen Tuttle, Melinda Lee, Alison Drain, Brad Plummer and Marcus Woo.