Ryan Helcoski
Ryan Helcoski distinguishes himself through his dual perspective as both a **PhD researcher** and science reporter, translating complex Utah-based scientific discoveries into accessible narratives that emphasize methodological rigor and real-world implications for local communities. His reporting consistently bridges academic research with public understanding by focusing on the investigative process rather than just outcomes.
Life Sciences Translation
Helcoski specializes in making cutting-edge biotechnology research tangible through concrete examples, such as explaining how CRISPR system Cas12a2 could selectively target cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue intact. He contextualizes laboratory breakthroughs within practical healthcare frameworks, detailing how Utah State University scientists tested the technology using patient-derived cancer cells in mouse models before considering human trials.
His coverage of anxiety research demonstrated similar precision by clarifying how immune cells called microglia - not just neurons - regulate anxiety responses, quoting researchers directly about "accelerator" and "brake" microglial functions.
Ecological Impact Reporting
His field research experience informs distinctive coverage of ecological studies, particularly regarding megafauna interactions with environments.
Helcoski reported on USU research tracking elephant bone distribution in South Africa, explaining how carcass sites become ecological hubs where elephants revisit, move bones, and alter local ecosystems through dung and urine deposition. He translated complex field methodology into clear narrative, describing how researchers establish transects in cardinal directions to map bone locations while deploying camera traps to monitor activity.
This approach reveals his ability to make scientific fieldwork processes comprehensible to general audiences.
Environmental Health Connections
Helcoski consistently identifies intersections between environmental factors and public health outcomes in Utah-specific contexts. His reporting on suicide risk research demonstrated how short-term climatic stressors like heat interact with air pollutants including fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide to amplify risk beyond previously understood parameters. He structured this complex relationship through researcher explanations of three-tiered risk factors: underlying genetic/trauma elements, mediating life-developed factors, and immediate environmental triggers.
His coverage of Utah's dietary supplement industry highlighted similar analytical depth by examining regulatory gaps despite the state's position as the nation's third-largest supplement producer.
4 more health journalists.
Aislinn Antrim
Aislinn Antrim is an associate editorial director at Pharmacy Times and a journalist who connects clinical advances, regulation, and the changing role of pharmacists. She writes pharmacy-centered health coverage on chronic disease therapeutics, specialty and oncology care, workforce pressures, and advocacy. Her reporting explains FDA actions, policy shifts, drug pipelines, and the real-world effects of new evidence on patient care and pharmacy practice. She often uses interviews and expert conversations to show how pharmacists improve adherence, manage side effects, navigate access and benefits, and coordinate care with prescribers. She also covers burnout, staffing strain, and the future of pharmacy practice, with an eye on how policy and economics shape work at the dispenser.
Alex Cabrero
Alex Cabrero is an Emmy award-winning KSL TV reporter who covers where health, safety and community life meet, always focused on how decisions and events affect everyday people. He has been with KSL since 2004, bringing long experience in breaking news, public service coverage and human-centered features. His beat includes public health, emergency response, technology, local infrastructure, environment and science, framed through community well-being and resilience. He reports on issues like mental health initiatives, law enforcement staffing, environmental hazards, rescues, wildfire detection tools, land-use fights and scientific discoveries, making technical and policy details clear for a general audience. He also produces many positive, everyday-life features on families, veterans, farmers, sports and local traditions. His style is direct and conversational, often built around a central person or family whose experience carries the story across TV, digital and social platforms.
Alexandra Frost
Alexandra Frost is a freelance journalist and content marketing writer who turns expert-backed health and family guidance into clear, practical service stories. She covers consumer health, wellness, nutrition, preventive care, medical research, parenting, kids’ mental health, education, products, and lifestyle. Her reporting explains concerns such as inflammation, urinary symptoms, fiber, lung cancer screening, pain treatment, mobility, family dynamics, children’s technology use, and school readiness. She profiles clinicians and scientists, connects research to everyday decisions, and focuses on what readers should watch for, ask, or change. Frost currently writes across multiple outlets, including Good Housekeeping, Cincinnati Magazine, Wirecutter, Popular Science, Success, Healthline, Parents, Women’s Health, Reader’s Digest, Today’s Parent, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, TIME, Consumer Reports, Business Insider, and National Geographic. She also works as a freelance editor, media consultant, and content strategist.
Alexandra Pattillo
Alexandra Pattillo is a freelance journalist who pairs rigorous health and science reporting with intimate accounts of patients’ lives. She covers health, science and wellness for the BBC and other major outlets, including National Geographic, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Outside, CNN and Inverse. Her beat includes eating disorders, women’s health, perinatal mental health, brain health, youth sports, concussion, long-term Covid symptoms, attention, habits and behavioral science. She reports on emerging treatments such as psychedelic-assisted therapy for anorexia, testing evidence, safety and relapse risk. She explains complex research in plain language and examines how it shapes everyday choices. Her reporting uses in-depth interviews with patients, families, clinicians, researchers and coaches. Through the BBC’s Health Gap column, she also covers stigma, unequal access to care and gaps between lived experience and standard medical pathways.