Sarah Bay is an experienced science writer and editor working in scholarly publishing, an erstwhile geneticist, and a photographer. Her professional life exists where the Venn diagrams for "passionate about genetics," "loves the written word," and "wants to improve the scientific enterprise" intersect. She has built her career using exceptional communication skills to support researchers across genetics and genomics.
Photo by Kate Spitz Photography
She has a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harding University, and she did her Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology at Emory University where she trained in Tamara Caspary's lab. Her dissertation focus was the intersection of Sonic Hedgehog signaling, cilia, cerebellar cancer, and a regulatory GTPase.
Having always loved science and words, Sarah spent the last year and a half of grad school working part-time as a science writer for the Genetics Society of America, writing for their blog, Genes to Genomes. After coming on board full time, she spent close to a decade working for the Society and the GSA Journals. Her role in a lean, mission-driven organization gave her a breadth of experience, and she completed work in scholarly publishing (including policy and strategy development), communications (including social media management and developmental & copy editing), conference and event programming, marketing and promotion (included content creation), and data analysis. Her experiences in academia made her certain that there is a more vibrant, inclusive, and equitable scientific enterprise out there. She is grateful to work in partnership with the Personal Genetics Education Project (PGED) and the Reclaiming STEM Institute on ways to realize that future through an NSF BIO-LEAPS grant.
Sarah lives in Atlanta with her husband (an airline pilot who loves to cook), her son (a five-year-old who inherited her personality—for better or for worse), and her two cats. She also owns Sarah Bay Photography, LLC, which specializes in lifestyle, portrait, product, and brand photography.
