Jennifer Margulis, PhD

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D. is the author of the new book, The Business of Baby, and a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.  Jennifer is an award-winning travel, culture, and parenting writer and a former contributing editor at Mothering magazine.  Her writing has appeared in many of the nation’s most respected and credible publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine.

A meticulous researcher who’s not afraid to be controversial, she is nationally known as a journalist who opens people’s eyes to the realities behind accepted practices in the care of children.Margulis has appeared live on prime-time TV in Paris, France (she is fluent in French) to talk about child slavery in Pakistan and was prominently featured in a PBS Frontline TV documentary, “The Vaccine War” (April 2010). One blogger, who disagreed with her point of view, wrote: “A woman like this probably has considerable influence, more than she rightly deserves. She’s articulate, she has the letters Ph.D. after her name to show that she is educated, and she looks good on camera … She’s more of a danger than Jenny McCarthy because most of us can’t relate to Jenny McCarthy, but we can relate to [her].”Jennifer is a writer who is not afraid to stick her neck out, but she does not court controversy for its own sake. She is passionate about investigating the overlooked dangers of mainstream practices, especially when scientific evidence has been brushed aside in favor of special interests.  Uncovering these issues is a matter of social justice.

Through her writing she tries to champion the rights of society’s most vulnerable: children, mothers, the working poor, and others on the social or economic margins.She has written/edited three books about parenting that have received accolades and critical acclaim: Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love (Seal Press); Why Babies Do That: Baffling Baby Behavior Explained(Willow Creek Press); and The Baby Bonding Book for Dads: Building a Closer Connection to Your New Baby (Willow Creek Press). Toddler won the Independent Publishers Book Association Award for best parenting book and Why Babies Do Thatwon the Midwestern Publishers Book Association Award.  Her cover-story for Smithsonian magazine was chosen by Nathalie Angier for inclusion in BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2009 (HarperCollins) and her article about a Salt Lake City entrepreneur won the 2010 American Society of Journalists and Authors Award (ASJA) for Best Narrative Non-fiction (lifestyle category).

Margulis is also a regular contributor to Family.com, a Disney-owned Website that has over five million unique hits a month.Margulis has a B.A. in English literature and Russian language from Cornell University, a Master’s in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in English (with an emphasis on 19th Century American Literature and African American literature) from Emory University.  She was awarded a highly competitive and prestigious Fulbright fellowship in 2006 and taught American literature at the University of Abdou Moumouni in Niamey, Niger (West Africa) for the 2006-2007 academic year.

A Boston native, Margulis lives in Ashland, Oregon (just 15 miles from the border with northern California) with her husband and four children.