About

Jessica Nordell is an award-winning author, poet, and science writer known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity. Her first book, The End of Bias: A Beginning, shortlisted for the 2022 Columbia Journalism/Lukas Prize for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2022 NYPL Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize, is the culmination of fifteen years of reporting and writing on the subject of bias and discrimination and how to solve it, for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Republic. The End of Bias was named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum, Greater Good, AARP, and Inc and is currently being used by organizations from newsrooms and startups to universities, healthcare organizations, and faith communities to solve some of their biggest cultural challenges. Nordell’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Scientific American, and Conduit.

Deeply engaged with connecting across differences to expand and heal the human experience, Nordell holds degrees in physics from Harvard and poetry from the University of Wisconsin, where she was the Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Graduate Fellow in Poetry. Nordell often collaborates across disciplines; her work with computer scientists to simulate the real-world impact of workplace bias became a 2021 viral NYT story. Nordell has been a visiting scholar at MIT and is the recipient of a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television and was a 2022 featured speaker at SXSW. She is a direct descendent of the last woman to be tried for witchcraft in the state of Connecticut, and is an amateur rock drummer.