Science, Health & Mental Health Writer

Freelance writer specializing in science, health, and mental health. Former director of communications for Columbia Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Mentor with NAMI Family Match, a free peer-support program of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

My Latest Work

Borderline Personality: Evidence Has Evolved. Care Hasn’t

Through adolescence and early adulthood, Lindsay Dow cycled through intensive psychotherapy, repeated hospitalizations, and medications that doctors kept adding or changing — none of it holding.Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 13, she spent years in care that never seemed to address the emotional volatility and instability that were upending her life.“I would go home, take the meds, and basically lie down in my bed and wait for my life to get better,” she recalled. Nearly a decade later, Dow c...

Nursing Graduate Welcomes Twins a Few Months Before Graduation

Elvia Vargas received unexpected news just as she was entering the most rigorous stretch of her nursing degree program—news that might have derailed any other student.Last summer, she learned she was pregnant with twins. But after years of balancing a cleaning business, science prerequisites, clinical training, and raising her children, she kept going.This month she will make the trip from her Pennsauken home before dawn to SHI Stadium in Piscataway to attend Commencement 2026 celebrating her gr...

Teen Cannabis Use Tied to Increase in Serious Mental Illness

Cannabis use in adolescence was associated with a significantly greater likelihood of developing serious psychiatric disorders — particularly psychosis and bipolar disorder — in early adulthood compared to no cannabis use, a large longitudinal cohort study found.Researchers analyzing electronic health record data from nearly 500,000 adolescents found that teens who reported past-year cannabis use were twice as likely to be diagnosed with psychotic or bipolar disorders as those who did not use ca...