I'm a veteran freelance journalist and former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times. My articles have appeared in the New York Times, Time magazine, the New Yorker and many other national publications. I've also authored two books -- a memoir, TESSIE AND PEARLIE: A GRANDDAUGHTER'S STORY (Scribner, 1996), and an investigation into an alleged cancer cluster and resulting litigation, PARTS PER MILLION:THE POISONING OF BEVERLY HILLS HIGH SCHOOL (Viking, 2007). I graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School's MSL program for journalists. In 2008, I took a year off to work on the Obama campaign as a precinct captain and field organizer in California and Nevada.