Jacob Margolis
What I cover
I cover science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters, as well as investigations and accountability.
My background
I created, wrote and hosted the LAist Studios podcasts, The Big One: Your Survival Guide and The Big Burn: How To Survive In The Age of Wildfires. I was part of the team that won the 2021 Investigative Reporters and Editors Audio Journalism Award for the series "Hot Days: Heat’s Mounting Death Toll On Workers In The U.S. "Most recently, I’ve published investigations into large scale illegal dumping in L.A. County and previously unreported heavy metal concentrations in fire retardants.
My goals
To uncover how science, policy, and power intersect — so people have the information they need to hold decision-makers accountable and protect their communities.
Best way to reach me
You can reach me by email: jmargolis@laist.com. Or for encrypted communications, I'm on Signal: jacobmargolis.1.
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Hundreds of LAUSD buildings may still need to be retrofitted. How can you figure out if your kid's school is safe? -
The parrots, originally from Mexico, are thriving in SoCal. -
Even though we now have an average snowpack, it’s possible we won’t see an average amount of runoff. -
Slides continue to disrupt traffic along Pacific Coast Highway and Topanga Canyon, even though it stopped raining days ago. -
The Swinhoe's white-eye population is exploding across California -
Time to grab a shovel and get digging. -
More than 90% of sea stars — which can grow to 3 feet wide — have been wiped out. This breakthrough is important. -
Images from across the Golden State show how the storm systems have transformed our mountains into winter wonderlands. -
A lot of it runs out to the ocean, but we do manage to capture hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a year. -
A lot of it comes down to inadequate data, limits to computational power, and a chaotic atmosphere.
