Tortoises, Rowing, and Georgetown — Meet new VPC member Devin Reese

By Terry Haycock, 1st Vice President for Membership

Devin Reese is Executive Editor of Natural History Magazine managing the Samplings news section. She and husband Hal Cardwell live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have three children: Camilla, 21, born in Panama, who is studying economics in London, England; Owen, 19, studying mathematics at Georgia Tech; and Guy, 17, a serious chess player and student at Alexandria High School.

Devin credits her father, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health for the past 60 years, for encouraging her interest in science. She earned a Bachelor of Science in ethology (animal behavior in the environment rather than lab) from Harvard University and a Ph.D in integrative biology (field ecology) from the University of California, Berkeley.

Originally studying ants with the late E. O. Wilson, Devin went on to western fence lizards, then western pond turtles. While studying lizards in California, she noticed that she was taking increasingly long lunch breaks away from watching lizard behaviors in the hot meadow to swimming and observing turtles in the Eel River. Her adviser suggested she switch her research focus to turtles.

Devin loves sharing science with people of all ages. In addition to her Natural History Magazine editorship, she freelances for various outlets providing:

• Video scripts for PBS Eons paleontology series
• Video scripts Esther Ikoro (“See You Outside”)
• Features for Cricket Muse Magazine
• Short Lists for The Scientist
• Science Curriculum for A-Pass
• Science report for World Wildlife Fund

Devin also volunteers to write interview blogs for a science and policy group linking science to local community action. She says, “It’s fascinating to chat with scientists and engineers about their trajectories into local activism and/or policy.”

Currently authoring a book on the biology and the life history of tortoises with notable herpetologist George Zug, emeritus curator of the Smithsonian Institution, Reese quips that “He is the authority; I bring lots of primary research articles to the table and massage the scientific lingo into more popular language.” She loves making science accessible to broad audiences.

Devin was born and raised in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. “As a child, I wore double-bladed ice skates on the Patowmack Canal off the Potomac and remember seeing frozen fish under the ice.”

She has also lived in Massachusetts, Florida, California, and Panama and traveled in southern Africa, Bangladesh, Japan, Europe, Central America, Canada, and the U.S. She doesn’t do much travel now while juggling a career and the busy schedules of her children, not to mention the pandemic.

“I’d really like to visit New Zealand, Australia, and the Arctic,” she says. Her family is currently hosting an exchange student from Denmark, so they also look forward to visiting that country. Devin says she gets her love of travel from her mother, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Marrakesh, Morocco, then Burkina Fasso, Africa.

Devin loves the water and used to sail when her boys were learning. During the pandemic, the family used inflatable paddle boats to get out of the house and explore the local streams and wetlands. She and her husband are certified as Virginia Master Naturalists and are “enjoying getting their hands dirty.”

An avid rower in narrow, eight-oared sweep boats with eight-person rowing teams, Devin rows competitively with the Rock Creek Rowing team out of D.C.’s Thompson Boat Center and recreationally with the Late Risers team out of Alexandria’s Dee Campbell Rowing Center. She says she, “had an exciting time racing in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston in 2021.”

Devin loves exploring thrift shops and likes variety “in everything,” so has few favorites (except turtles!) A member of the Virginia Writers Club, most of whose members are fiction writers, she found VPC when it was suggested by Voices for Biodiversity. She looks forward to meeting members from diverse writing disciplines.

When we reconvene in the spring, introduce yourself and ask Devin about the five tortoises who inhabit her home — two prolific adults and their offspring (one juvenile and two hatchlings). She is not the usually pictured stereotypical scientist in a white lab coat at home only on the bench, but a delightful, enthusiastic member who is great fun. Don’t miss a chance to spend some time with her.