Marguerite Y. Holloway

Marguerite Y. Holloway

Bio:

Marguerite Holloway is Director of Science & Environmental Journalism at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has written for various publications, including Discover, the New York Times, and Scientific American, where she was a longtime editor and contributor. Holloway is the author of The Measure of Manhattan (W.W. Norton, 2013), the story of John Randel Jr., the 19th century surveyor who laid the grid plan on the island, and of the contemporary scientists who use his data. Holloway is fascinated by maps, by natural and urban history. She is excited to be experimenting with data so as to tell stories in new ways—something she is also pursuing in the algorithmic data project Science Surveyor

The Templeton Project will devise and use novel sensor technology to travel across interspecies boundaries to tell the story of several weeks in the life of New York City from the perspective of its least-loved resident: Rattus norvegicus. The team is intrigued by the possibility of up-ending people’s perceptions of rats by getting New Yorkers to identify with the creatures in unexpected ways and to discover the stories we share. The project aspires to gather new scientific insight into rat behavior, but, in addition, the team–Marguerite Holloway, Brian House and Jason Munshi-South—want to provoke people to see rats in a different way, to connect with their rhythms and experiences and, ultimately, to feel the city as a rat does.