Hi, I’m Wudan!

I’m your narrative Swiss Army knife: I’m an award-winning narrative journalist, podcast producer, fact-checker, content writer, and media entrepreneur.

As a narrative journalist, I specialize in covering systemic solutions to seemingly intractable issues, unlikely connections, and contrarian characters. My reporting has taken me to the largest refugee camp in the world, corners of the former Soviet Union and the US that live in the shadow of nuclear weapons testing, and the rugged mountain ranges of the American West.

My journalism appears in The Atlantic, The California Sunday Magazine, The Guardian, High Country News, Longreads, MIT Technology Review, National Geographic, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Popular Mechanics, and beyond. A piece I wrote about the emotional toll of reporting on science and society is anthologized in The Open Notebook’s The Craft of Science Writing.

I am a multiple grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. UC Berkeley’s 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, the Institute of Journalism and Natural Resources, and the Society of Environmental Journalists have also funded my journalistic obsessions.

My feature for Undark, titled The vice of spice: confronting lead-tainted turmeric, won the Best of the Northwest Science Writing Award in the journalism category in 2023 and third place in the 2023 Awards for Excellent in Health Care Journalism in their public health category, small division. My feature for The Atlantic, on how the pandemic is challenging one of science’s long-held assumption, was selected as the honorable mention for the Best of the Northwest Science Writing Award in journalism in 2021.

I bring my narrative chops to mission-driven companies and institutions who are are leaders in their field as a content writer. I’m able to ‘find the story’ whether I’m writing about supercomputers and quantum computing, real estate, or social justice issues.

In addition to my writing, I produce and fact-check limited-series narrative podcasts. I also executive produce and host The Writers’ Co-op: an anti-hustle, anti-capitalist business podcast and membership program for freelance creatives. I am launching a first-of-its-kind fact-checking agency this fall, called FACTUAL. You can learn more about it here.

Prior to journalism, I was pursuing my doctoral degree in cancer biology. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about this career transition! I've described the leap from academia to journalism on Chronicle Vitae and The Creative Nonfiction Podcast — and in my own words.

I live in Seattle with my husband and pup. When I’m not working, I’m exploring the mountains with skis, ropes, or — more simply — my own two feet. Over the course of two seasons, I through-hiked the 500-some miles along Washington’s Pacific Crest Trail. (My trail name, LFG, says everything you need to know about me.) Escape fantasies include becoming a sponsored long-distance hiker, a professional skate skier, or a knitting YouTube influencer.