Thomas Lin

Writer. Editor. Publisher. Builder.

Thomas Lin founded Quanta, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, editorially independent science and math magazine published by the Simons Foundation, and was the publication's first editor-in-chief from 2012 to 2024. He is the editor of two books, Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire and The Prime Number Conspiracy, published by The MIT Press. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist David Gross called Quanta “the greatest thing to happen to science journalism in many years.” The Marginalian writer Maria Popova tweeted, “If you aren’t reading @QuantaMagazine, you are missing some of the finest, sharpest science writing of our time.” And the Cornell University mathematician and best-selling author Steven Strogatz described Quanta as "head and shoulders above anything else out there for science and math coverage."

In addition to the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting, Quanta has been recognized with a 2020 National Magazine Award for General Excellence for its “willingness to tackle some of the toughest and most difficult topics in science and math in a language that is accessible to the lay reader without condescension or oversimplification.” Quanta has also won two People's Voice Webby Awards, for best science website and for best writing. A video series Lin created and executive produced received a 2020 New York Emmy Award.

From 2005 to 2012, Lin was a digital editor at The New York Times, where he managed the online science and national news sections, co-founded and edited the Scientist at Work blog, created the Profiles in Science video series, produced the Science Times podcast, and wrote about science, tennis and technology. His writing has also appeared in Quanta Magazine, The New Yorker, Tennis Magazine, Wired and other publications. Lin graduated from Cornell University as a College Scholar and a Dean’s Scholar studying physics and literature, received a master’s in teaching from Oregon State University, completed a Writers’ Institute fellowship at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, has taught at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and has served on the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.