Mary Nichols has been pivotal in California’s war on smog. But as her tenure ends next week, activists say she didn’t do enough to protect low-income communities and they scuttled her candidacy for Biden’s top environmental post. Wounded but tenacious, she’s contemplating her next battles.
Author Archives: Rachel Becker
Rachel Becker is a reporter with a background in scientific research. After studying the links between the brain and the immune system, Rachel left the lab bench with her master's degree to become a journalist via the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. For nearly three years, Rachel was a staff science reporter at The Verge, where she wrote stories and hosted videos covering a range of beats including climate change, nicotine, and nuclear technology. Her byline has also appeared in NOVA Next, National Geographic News, Smithsonian, Slate, Nature, Nature Medicine, bioGraphic, and Hakai Magazine, as well as the PBS Digital Studios video series Gross Science and the YouTube show MinuteEarth. Rachel is now an environment reporter for CALmatters, where she covers climate change and California's environmental policies.
