Nathalia Holt

Holt studied at University of Southern California, Tulane University, and Harvard University. Her career includes work at the Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Institute.[1]

Her research as a science writer has included work at the JPL archives, the Caltech Library, and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard.[2] Her work appears in The Atlantic,[3] The New York Times,[4] PBS,[5] Popular Science,[6] and NPR.[7]

Her book Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV (2015) discusses the scientific complexities of two patients who have been exceptions to the usual procession of AIDS. Each has experienced a "functional cure", raising hopes that researchers may someday find a "safe and reliable way" to protect patients against HIV. Two types of genetic mutation - the “exposed uninfected” and the “elite controllers,” - appear to be able to resist the disease. Holt describes the science involved, to the extent that it is currently understood.[8]

Holt's book Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (2016) chronicles the lives of women computers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.[9] It also puts them into the context of milestones in both scientific and more general history. Supervisors Macie Roberts and later Helen Ling employed women as computers at a time when few scientific careers were open to women.[10]

Holt lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

• Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV. Penguin Publishing Group. 24 February 2015. ISBN 978-0-14-218184-3. OCLC 937872774[11][12]
• Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars. Little, Brown. 5 April 2016. ISBN 978-0-316-33891-2. OCLC 969388193[10][13]
• The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History. Little, Brown. 2019. ISBN 0316439150.[14]

• Timothy Ray Brown
• Susan G. Finley
• Mary Blair
• Retta Scott

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Appearance on PBS
• Appearance on NPR
• Appearance on TED

How Lies Launch Modern Medicine, Dr. Nathalia Holt, 15:30, TEDx[1]

Nathalia Holt: Cured - How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV and Forever Changed Medical Science, 28:07, WGBH Forum Network[2]

Meet The 'Rocket Girls,' The Women Who Charted The Course To Space, 5:49, All Things Considered on NPR[3] }}