Minnesota native and Wisconsin resident Elizabeth Gudrais spent 15 years on the East Coast. She cut her teeth as a journalist at the Harvard Crimson (and studied Russian literature when not at the newspaper office). At the Providence Journal, she covered local news; the night general-assignment beat (including lots of breaking news heard over the police scanner: shootings, stabbings, fires); and, finally, politics and state government. At Harvard Magazine (the alumni magazine for Harvard University), she gained editing and Web production experience, while writing alumni profiles and articles about student life, university administration, and academic research of all kinds.

Elizabeth’s reporting has taken her to Chile, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and India. In all of these settings, as well as Harvard research labs and crime scenes, Elizabeth has found that the same skills serve well: connect with your subject, ask good questions, and tell readers a story that is both compelling and true. Whether the topic is architecture or psychology, whether the subject is a Harvard dean or a suspected criminal, journalism always involves translation—whether the “foreign language” is Spanish, the language of molecular biology, or simply another person’s life experience.