About — Rachel E. Gross

Rachel E. Gross is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brooklyn. Her book, Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage (W.W. Norton, 2022) tells the story of how early anatomists mapped the female body — and how a new generation is wresting them back. A New York Times Editors’ Choice, Vagina Obscura has been called “an enthralling and scrupulously researched popular-science study of the vagina” and “required reading for all lawmakers.”

Rachel reports on hidden bias in medicine and marginalized scientists who are changing their fields.

Her reporting and essays have appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, BBC Future, Scientific American, WIRED, Slate, National Geographic, Undark, and more. Her series for The New York Times, ‘Body Language,’ explores how medical terminology affects doctors and patients. This year, she taught and lectured on women’s health and the history of the female body as the Affiliate Scholar at Russell Sage College’s Women’s Institute.

Before writing Vagina Obscura, she was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, where she studied reproductive biology, gender, and history of science. Before that, she was the digital science editor for Smithsonian Magazine, where she launched a series on unsung women in the history of science. Before that, she was a science reporter at Slate and a fact-checker at WIRED, where she once watched three seasons of ‘Breaking Bad’ to figure out whether bodies dissolved in hydrofluoric or hydrochloric acid.

Rachel is an experienced public speaker and frequent podcast guest, with appearances on NPR’s Science Friday, the BBC, and PBS News Hour.

She has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. She moonlights as a sex educator, translating vital sexual health information for diverse audiences. Some of her favorite projects have been creating an interactive sex education night for WNYC’s The Greene Space (featuring Sex Anatomy Jeopardy!™), hosting a Scientific American video about the clitoris (featuring the clitoris, as herself), and performing for the national storytelling show Story Collider (featuring her gynecologist).

Rachel’s work has been supported by a book grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and two MacDowell artist fellowships. She has also been recognized with an Award for Excellence in Religion Reporting (“How To Talk With Evangelicals About Evolution”) and a Wilbur Award for Best Online Story (“How an Evangelical Creationist Accepted Evolution”). Her video “The Clitoris, Uncovered” was a finalist for an Online Journalism Award in digital storytelling. She also enjoys pun competitions, roller disco, and public karaoke.