For Immediate Release: January 6, 2021
Media Contact: Liz Hallgren, [email protected]
Aguilar and Palmer will expand STAT’s scope of coverage to become the definitive source of health tech news and further solidify its role as the leading health and science outlet
Boston, MA – STAT is proud to announce that it has hired two new health tech reporters, Mario Aguilar and Katie Palmer. These highly accomplished journalists will join STAT’s formidable team to cover the intersection of health and technology, and will expand its role as the leading health and science outlet. Their coverage will be critical as the pandemic accelerates the role of technology in delivering health care.
Aguilar brings to the role more than a decade of experience covering technology, much of it at Gizmodo, where he worked his way up from reporter to deputy editor. He was also a senior editor at the tech publication Protocol. Most recently, he has been a technology editor at CNN Business, where he helped edit the popular ”Misinformation Watch” blog around the November election.
Palmer previously led health and science coverage at Quartz and also directed science coverage at Wired, where she climbed the ranks from research editor to senior editor. In 2018, Palmer was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, where she investigated conflict of interest non-disclosure in research using computer-assisted reporting and engaged with computer scientists at Stanford to begin building a database of such conflicts.
“We’re excited to kick off the year with these two hugely respected journalists joining STAT,” said Rick Berke, STAT’s co-founder and executive editor. “Our ambition is clear: to have the most authoritative coverage anywhere of the intersection of technology and health care. As tech plays an increasingly vital role delivering health care, Mario and Katie will build on the excellent coverage already produced by Erin Brodwin and Casey Ross on this beat.’’
This team will be a critical part of STAT’s second-annual Health Tech Summit in May, which will examine how biology and technology are converging to change medicine, and include speakers such as Francis deSouza, the CEO of Illumina, and others. Additionally, STAT has seen the audience for its weekly health tech newsletter more than double in the past year. And this spring, STAT will publish a report on artificial intelligence in health, underwritten by the Commonwealth Fund.
Last year, STAT experienced significant growth, spurred in large part by its pandemic coverage. STAT’s audience grew six-fold, and STAT was mentioned more than 20,000 times in news outlets in 2020. STAT led coverage about the race to develop vaccines and treatments, Operation Warp Speed, and the federal government’s handling of the crisis. STAT also continued its important reporting to expose racial bias in health care algorithms and revealed how drug makers influence national and state elected officials.
STAT is considered the must-read health, science and medicine publication by journalists, academics, politicians, researchers, executives and other industry leaders.
About STAT
Founded in 2015, STAT is a national digital media brand that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about the life sciences industries to at least 6 million visitors to the site each month. In addition, we had more than 20 million unique readers on the Apple News app in 2020. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry — and a revolution in human health.
STAT’s main newsroom is located in Boston, with bureaus in Washington, New York City, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.