Dr. Czerne Reid is a Senior Lecturer and Program Director in the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, and affiliate faculty in the UF College of Journalism and Communications. She is a lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, cited for distinguished contributions to the communication of science, especially through sustained leadership of programs to develop future generations of science writers.
She earned her PhD in environmental chemistry at Emory University, and a graduate certificate in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her undergraduate degree in chemistry is from the University of the West Indies, Mona, in her native Jamaica.
She leads the design, development, administration and evaluation of online education programs and courses in a range of psychiatry subject areas. She spearheaded the development of the psychiatry department’s Graduate Certificate in Addiction and Recovery and Professional Certificate in Autism Spectrum Disorder. She is particularly interested in science communication as a career for scientists, and conducts research and extensive mentoring in this area. She is principal investigator of The Science to SciCom Study, which examines the experiences of STEM Ph.D.-level-trained individuals who switch career paths from science research to science communication. She leads the Science Writing Career Interest Team of the UF Health Grad Student & Postdoc Career and Professional Development (GradDev) program. Dr. Reid is also an independent science writer and editor; her writing has appeared in National Geographic and other outlets, and she is a contributing editor for Science News, published by the Society for Science & the Public. She is a board-certified Editor in the Life Sciences (ELS). Dr. Reid is the recipient of an Exemplary Teacher Award from the UF College of Medicine, an Educator Award and Educational Innovator Award from the UF Health/CTSI Educational Scholarship Program, an Entrepreneur Faculty Fellowship from the UF Warrington College of Business, and the Diane McGurgan Service Award from the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).
Dr. Reid co-chairs the NASW Education Committee, co-chaired the Regional Committee on Latin America and the Caribbean of the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017 (WCSJ2017), and serves on the Committee on Science & Technology Engagement with the Public (CoSTEP) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. She holds professional memberships in AAAS, NASW, the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS), the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) and the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ). She serves on the UF Faculty Senate, University Libraries Committee and University Curriculum Committee