Gareth Cook has covered science for the Boston Globe since 2000. He graduated in 1991 with two bachelor's degrees from Brown University: International Relations and Mathematical Physics. He was named to the Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies.

After graduating, Cook passed the Foreign Service written and oral examinations but then decided on a career in journalism. He worked as an assistant editor at Foreign Policy magazine until 1993. From 1993 to 1994, he worked as a reporter at U.S. News & World Report, focussing mainly on national politics. In 1995, he moved to a job as an editor at the Washington Monthly. Cook then left Washington to be the news editor of the Boston Phoenix. He recruited a new staff, and his staff won numerous awards from the New England PRess Association.

In 1999, he came to the Globe's city desk, where he started as the New England Editor. In the fall of that year, he was named the Sunday Metro Editor, responsible for editing local and regional stories for the Sunday paper. The next year, Cook moved to a job covering science -- a lifelong passion.

He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and now lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with his wife, Amanda, and his son, Aidan.