Undark Magazine

Overview

Undark is a nonprofit, editorially independent digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society, published under the Knight Science Journalism Program (KSJ) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its content is freely available and widely republished by outlets including The Atlantic, Scientific American and NPR.

History

Undark was co-founded in 2016 by Pulitzer Prize-winning science author Deborah Blum, then KSJ's director, and former New York Times journalist Tom Zeller Jr., who serves as editor-in-chief. The magazine's name references a radium-based luminous paint product that proved toxic to those who handled it. KSJ itself was founded in 1983 by Victor McElheny, who died in July 2025. Blum stepped down as KSJ director in 2025 after a decade in the role and was succeeded in August 2025 by Usha Lee McFarling, a Pulitzer Prize-winning STAT News correspondent and former KSJ fellow; Blum joined Undark's board following her departure. Undark has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Reporting (2022) and Single Topic Issue (2023), and its contributors have won the George Polk Award for Environmental Journalism (2019), among other honors.

Key personnel

Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder: Tom Zeller Jr.
Founding Publisher and Co-Founder: Deborah Blum

Location and contact info

Website
https://undark.org