About

Ashley Braun is a science and environmental journalist and fact-checker based in Seattle, Washington. Her reporting has taken her from the United Nations climate summit in Morocco and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to California’s redwood forests and Washington’s salmon rivers. She enjoys exploring complex relationships between humans and the natural world, and the barriers and attempts to mend those relationships.

Her mission is telling true stories, discovering and sharing wonder, and connecting others to the world around them through journalism. Ashley believes in the power of fact-based journalism to enable accountability, solutions, and empathy. Some of her favorite topics include biodiversity, climate, conservation, environmental policy, and Indigenous affairs, but she’s broadly curious about science and the universe. So, pretty much everything.

She is a senior editor at the climate and energy investigative news outlet DeSmog.

Her work has appeared in Smithsonian, Longreads, The Atlantic, Slate, bioGraphic, Audubon Magazine, Science, Scientific American, Hakai Magazine, Science News, The Stranger, Civil Eats, Crosscut, Medium, Discover Magazine, Popular Science, Natural History Magazine, Earth Touch News, Grist, and OnEarth.org.

In addition, she has employed her keen eye and attention to detail as a fact-checker for Science News, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Opinion Audio, Rigged, and other publications.

Ashley formerly worked as an editor and writer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She got her start in journalism juggling a variety of responsibilities, such as writing, editing, news production, social media, and pun writing, at Grist.

In 2023, Ashley received the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Science in Society Journalism Award in the science reporting category for her Hakai Magazine story, How Indigenous Sea Gardens Produced Massive Amounts of Food for Millennia. In 2020, she received second place for Outstanding Feature Story from the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) for her Longreads story, Research and Rescue: Saving Species From Ourselves. She has benefited from grants and fellowship opportunities from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources (IJNR), the Solutions Journalism Network, and AAAS/SciLine.

Ashley is a former president and current member of the Northwest Science Writers Association and is a member of SEJ and the National Association of Science Writers.

Outside of work, she’s often found in one of her two prolific vegetable gardens, climbing plastic and real rocks, and cultivating community among her fellow gardeners, writers, documentary film lovers, neighbors, and friends.

Looking for just the right combination of Brains and Braun? Get in touch.

Photo credit: Lindsay Thomas Photos