Michael Le Page

Michael Le Page is a science journalist who writes about everything from the dawn of life and evolution to genetic engineering, CRISPR gene editing, biomedicine and the environment, especially global heating. He studied various sciences at Cambridge University including molecular biology, and later did an NVQ Foundation Skills Certificate in Journalism.

He has worked in various roles at New Scientist including as deputy news editor and as a feature editor. During this time, he won the 2006 MJA Health editor of the year award. His 2007 special, Climate change: A guide for the perplexed, racked up millions of views online. More recently he has been working as a reporter and has won a number of awards: the ASBW Best News Item award in 2016 for Earth now halfway to warming limit, the MJA Science Explained award in 2019 for A new kind of superfood and the ABSW Feature of the Year award in 2020 for Infectious Optimism. He has also been shortlisted for several other awards including Science Journalist of the Year in the 2019 National Press Awards and the MJA News Story of the Year (specialist audience) award 2021 for The threat from new variants.

He has done radio and television interviews, given talks, taken part in debates and can often be heard on the New Scientist podcast. The more unusual things he has done include testing shark repellents in the Bahamas and walking on water at the Edinburgh Science Festival. In 2022, he was acknowledged in a scientific paper for asking questions at the preprint stage that helped improve the final paper.