After a stint hitchhiking across the U.S. and working in an Alaskan fish cannery, Andrew Lawler began his life as a journalist in 1984 as an associate editor at The Futurist, where he learned the ropes of publishing and helped redesign the magazine. He landed a job as a reporter for a space publication just days before the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster, and spent the next decade and a half covering Washington politics for a host of newsletters, newspapers, and magazines. He interviewed Dan Quayle and Al Gore while they were vice president, questioned President George Walker Bush, covered countless congressional hearings, and did gum-shoe reporting of federal agencies. He also founded Space Station News and was on the original staff of Space News . In addition, Lawler traveled widely around the world writing about space, science, and technology in both developed and developing nations. In 2000, after spending a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism fellow, he founded Science Magazine's New England bureau. Following a visit to Baghdad in 2001, he began reporting frequently on Middle Eastern and Central Asian archaeology. He now is a contributing correspondent to Science Magazine and Archaeology Magazine, and writes frequently for a host of publications.

Timeline

1983:

B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies with Highest Honors in Political Science, Anthropology, and Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Junior year study at Freiburg Universitaet, Germany

1984-1985

Associate Editor, The Futurist Magazine, Bethesda, Maryland
Edited stories, redesigned magazine, covered science issues

1986-1987

Associate Editor, Space Business News, Washington, D.C.
Covered the Challenger disaster and the aerospace industry

1987-1989

Founding Editor, Space Station News, Washington D.C.
Covered the international space station program, including U.S., European, Japanese, and Canadian aspects, along with the Russian Mir. Also covered defense space issues for Defense Daily.

1989-1994

Senior Writer, Space News, Washington D.C.
Covered White House, Congress, NASA, and European, Japanese, Indian, and Chinese space programs

1998-1999

MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow, Cambridge, Massachusetts

2000-2004

Boston Correspondent, Science Magazine
Covered universities, neuroscience, biology, women and minorities issues, space science, Earth science, archeology, science politics

2004 - 2009

New England Correspondent, Science Magazine
 Freelance Writer

2009 - Present

Contributing Correspondent, Science Magazine
Contributing Correspondent, Archaeology Magazine

Education

1983 B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies with Highest Honors in Political Science, Anthropology, and Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Junior year study at Freiburg Universitaet, Germany

Books

The Space Station Directory. With James Vedda. 1987.

Personal

Native of Norfolk, Virginia.  
Born May 25, 1961