Wendy Schmidt

Writing

A journalist and Silicon Valley marketing communications professional early in her career, Wendy recognizes the power of language to explain complex concepts, change minds and unite people.

  • hands holding a jar of hummus
    Fortune | July 14, 2025
    A new way to eat: How to fix a food system that leaves us vulnerable and hurts the environment
    Everything about the way we make and consume food—from the food packaging, to the placement of products in the grocery store aisles, to the background…
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  • TIME | June 30, 2025
    The ocean still holds mysteries. That's why we must save it.
    When the world’s first marine reserves were established in the 1920s, Jacques Cousteau was an adolescent. The deepest we could dive was about 500 ft. Humans were beginning…
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  • Schmidt Ocean Institute Australian Mesophotic Coral Examination
    The Economist | May 29, 2025
    The problems with deep-sea mining
    We stand to lose far more than we could possibly gain by mining the deep seabed. Life-saving pharmaceuticals and unique organisms are not the only things…
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  • The San Diego Union Tribune | Jan. 8, 2025
    It’s time to make the fashion industry more eco-friendly. Here’s how.
    Now that gift-giving season is over, gift-returning season is in full swing. And while returning an itchy sweater or ill-fitting shoes might feel like the…
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  • The Boston Globe | Nov. 21, 2024
    Don't rely on chance meetings for scientific discoveries
    The Smithsonian Institution would do well to acquire the sluggish photocopier that served the third floor of the University of Pennsylvania’s clinical research building in…
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  • Il Piccolo | Oct. 8, 2024
    L'appello ecologista di Wendy Schmidt (Sailing for Ocean Health)
    There is nothing quite as stunning as the crisp blue Gulf of Trieste dotted with thousands of trimmed sails, a sight that greets hundreds of…
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  • Newsday | July 17, 2024
    How can one person help save the ocean? Compost.
    Our oceans are in trouble. What can one person do to save them? Compost. Yes, composting — creating that “black gold” of decomposed food scraps…
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  • TIME Magazine | Dec. 1, 2023
    The power of data to fight climate destruction
      It’s been a record-setting year.  Between last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference and the one starting later this week, climate change has hit…
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  • Eco Magazine | Nov. 1, 2023
    Diving deep to discover & conserve ocean resources
      For a child, there is little more wondrous than nature, than digging through rich soil or turning over a hefty rock just to see…
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  • Hydrothermal Vent, Worms
    The Guardian | July 25, 2023
    Mining companies are eager to dig up the ocean. That’s a dangerous idea.
    We already know the damage that mining can cause on land. It could be devastating to the deep sea. Thousands of feet below the surface…
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  • Fortune | June 8, 2023
    A handful of companies have the power to save the oceans. Here’s why we’re urging them to reinvent our land-based food systems.
    The health of the oceans starts on land. We’re both lovers of the ocean who are working to make change here on solid ground. Ellen…
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  • Medium | May 1, 2023
    The final frontier is closer than we think
    Ocean exploration isn’t having a moment. It’s having a century. For almost all of human history, the ocean was not only inaccessible but also inhospitable…
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  • TIME Magazine | Nov. 1, 2022
    We’re not using AI to its fullest human potential
    We should be living in a golden age of science. For centuries, the scientific method was defined by two pillars—theory and experiment. Now, we live…
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  • ECO Magazine | Autumn 2022
    To the sea, and beyond
    Squint at the images released from the James Webb Space Telescope this summer—a black sky electrified by starry sparks—and you could be looking into another…
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  • Boston Globe | June 16, 2022
    How to spur scientific breakthroughs
    Human knowledge and human connections should operate across divides, from the ivied walls between academic departments to the borders between countries. If you’ve ever used…
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  • Inside Philanthropy | May 22, 2022
    Philanthropy can seed agroecology
    If you’ve ever flown over California’s Central Valley or the Midwest, you might have noticed expansive quilt-like patches of agricultural landscape. Indeed, over the past…
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  • Chronicle of Philanthropy | Feb. 28, 2022
    Paul Farmer’s approach shaped our foundation and embodied the true meaning of giving
    With the death last week of Paul Farmer, the world lost a living saint. Farmer, who founded Partners in Health and provided health care and…
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  • San Diego Union-Tribune | Jan. 11, 2022
    Composting should be your 2022 New Year’s resolution. Here’s why.
    Composting recycles food waste so that it isn’t waste at all. Compost makes excellent top soil, which in turn absorbs carbon, helping to cool our…
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  • USA Today | April 6, 2021
    Bringing biology and AI together
      We’re betting that artificial intelligence will help speed real breakthroughs to improve human health. Life and computer sciences have long moved in parallel. In…
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  • The San Diego Union-Tribune | Feb. 17, 2021
    To combat COVID-19, we needed fast science. Fighting climate change will take time—and funding.
    It can be easy to forget as more COVID-19 vaccines are used every day that the incredible speed with which these vaccines were developed is…
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  • The Sacramento Bee | Sept. 27, 2020
    Newsom must dump fossil fuels to fight climate change
    In 1966, when smog obscured the Los Angeles skyline and residents choked on noxious fumes, California enacted the country’s first clean air law. In 1970,…
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