Clayton Aldern

Clayton Aldern is a writer, editor, and occasional computational neuroscientist who splits his time between Seattle and Tacoma. Most broadly, he is interested in the relationships between science, technology, culture, and public policy. His neuroscience research, which informs his writing, has generally concerned sensory processing and contextual memory. His essays have been published by outlets including Logic, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and Crosscut, and his reporting has been republished by Mother Jones, Vox, New Republic, Fusion, Newsweek, CityLab, and others. He recently completed a fellowship at Seattle-based non-profit environmental magazine Grist. Previously, he has taught and tutored in writing, biology, and psychology at a variety of levels. A Rhodes Scholar and a Salzburg Global Fellow in Neuroscience and Art, Clayton holds a master’s in neuroscience and a master’s in public policy from Oxford. He is from Minnesota.

Clayton received a 2017 GAP Award to complete a book proposal based on a series of creative and narrative nonfiction published in the environmental magazine Grist. Combining his backgrounds as a neuroscientist and writer, Clayton has been researching the relationships between climate change, environmental degradation, brain science, and mental and emotional health. The book will address the connections—fascinating, foreboding, and all too real—between a shifting environment and the human brain.

Artist Trust thanks the Amazon Literary Partnership for underwriting this award through Artist Trust’s Corporate Partnership program. For information about supporting Washington State artists, visit here.