chinese narrative essay

Chinese Narrative

Andrew H. Plaks

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Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays

• Edited by Andrew H. Plaks
• Princeton Legacy Library

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Although Chinese narrative, and especially the genres of colloquial fiction, have been subjected to intensive scholarly scrutiny, no comprehensive volume has provided a framework that would permit an overall view of the tradition. The distinguished contributors to this volume have taken an important first step in making possible the consideration of Chinese narrative at the level of comparative and general literary scholarship. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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• Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays

In this Book

• Edited by Andrew H. Plaks
• Published by: Princeton University Press
• Series: Princeton Legacy Library

Although Chinese narrative, and especially the genres of colloquial fiction, have been subjected to intensive scholarly scrutiny, no comprehensive volume has provided a framework that would permit an overall view of the tradition. The distinguished contributors to this volume have taken an important first step in making possible the consideration of Chinese narrative at the level of comparative and general literary scholarship. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

• Table of Contents

• Title Page, Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• pp. vii-viii
• CYRIL BIRCH
• EARLY HISTORICAL ANDFICTIONAL NARRATIVE
• Early Chinese Narrative: The Tso-chuan as Example
• JOHN C. Y. WANG
• The Six Dynasties Chih-kuai and the Birth of Fiction
• KENNETH J. DEWOSKIN
• A Taste for Apricots: Approaches to Chinese Fiction
• EUGENE EOYANG
• MING AND EARLY CH'INGFICTION
• Narrative Patterns in San-kuo and Shui-hu
• The Nature of Ling Meng-ch'u's Fiction
• PATRICK HANAN
• Chang Chu-p'o's Commentary on the Chin p'ing mei
• DAVID T. ROY
• pp. 115-123
• Sui Tang yen-i and the Aesthetics of the Seventeenth-Century Suchou Elite
• ROBERT G. HEGEL
• pp. 124-160
• MIDDLE AND LATE CH'INGFICTION
• Allegory in Hsi-yu Chi and Hung-lou Meng
• ANDREW H. PLAKS
• pp. 163-202
• Point of View, Norms, and Structure: Hung-lou Meng and Lyrical Fiction
• WONG KAM-MING
• pp. 203-226
• Lyric Vision in Chinese Narrative: A Reading of Hung-Lou Meng and Ju-lin Wai-shih
• YU-KUNG KAO
• pp. 227-243
• Ritual and Narrative Structure in Ju-lin Wai-shih
• SHUEN-FU LIN
• pp. 244-265
• The Scholar-Novelist and Chinese Culture: A Reappraisal of Ching-hua Yuan
• pp. 266-306
• CHINESE NARRATIVETHEORY
• Towards a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative
• pp. 309-352
• List of Contributors
• pp. 353-356
• pp. 357-365

Additional Information

Literary Universals Project

Commonalities behind/beside differences between chinese and english narratives.

Dan Shen , Peking [Beijing] University

The difference between Chinese and English narrative works may not be as great as they first appear since we can almost always find commonalities behind or beside differences.

Commonality behind Different Terminology

In China, the traditional study of “文体/ wenti ” (style) appears to be quite different from the study of style in the West. If we read papers or books or attend conferences on “ wenti ” (style) or “文体学/ wentixue ” (stylistics) by scholars in the Chinese departments, we may find that the focus is not language choices as in the West, but generic characteristics. The word “ wenti ” for scholars in the Chinese departments has kept its ancient sense, concerned with literary genres. Stylistic study means the study of generic classification, generic boundary crossing, generic norms or characteristics, and generic development. When the object of discussion is a specific text, the focus is still on how the textual characteristics reflect or deviate from the generic norms, and how the deviation contributes to the development of the genre.

However, if we shift attention to another Chinese term “风格  fengge ,” we’ll find more underlying commonality. The term sounds different (“style” is usually translated as “ wenti ”, not “ fengge ”), but actually comes closer to the Western “style” since, apart from being concerned with generic characteristics, it is also concerned with the features of individual authors’ creation of specific texts. But of course the Chinese “ fengge ” has a much wider sense than Western “style”, covering the artistic characteristics of “the selection and refinement of the subject matter, characterization, the use of language and other representational methods” (Zheng and Tang 38-39).

Behind such differences, we can focus on language choices in the study of style or wenti both in Chinese and in English. Since China opened its door to the West, many younger scholars, especially postgraduate students in the Chinese departments, have drawn on Western stylistics in their research on “ wenti ,” and some publications in the field of traditional Chinese “ wentixue ” show traces of the influence of Western stylistics. So long as the focus is language choices, the study of “style” in English and “ wenti ” in Chinese will be more or less similar. But of course, both Chinese and English have their own language features. For instance, syntactically, the former has paratactic structure (marked by coordination) while the later has hypotactic structure (characterized by subordination); and lexically, the former is typified by four-character structure of idioms which is not shared by the latter. Nevertheless, both Chinese and English (also French, Spanish etc.) do have many language features in common, such as the same subject-verb-object sequence (compare VSO for Irish or Hindi’s SOV). As for stylistic devices, we often find commonalities besides differences. In the following section, I’ll focus on the stylistic means of presenting characters’ speech.

Commonality beside Peculiarity

A most notable feature of Chinese is that it is free from verbal tense indicators. In this language, that is to say, there is no “backshift” in tense when the mode of speech shifts from a direct to an indirect one, nor is the subordinating conjunction “that” or capitalization used in indirect speech. So except for the personal pronoun, which is sometimes left out in Chinese, a language characterized by frequent subject and determiner omission, there can be no perceivable linguistic difference between indirect speech and the speech in quotation marks. This means that indirect speech can sometimes pass for free direct speech (i.e. the type which differs from direct speech only in terms of being free from quotation marks), or vice versa. I have elsewhere suggested using the term “混合体 hunheti ” (blend) to describe such a peculiar mode of speech in Chinese, one that is liable to two or more interpretations (Shen “Transference” 397).

In effect blend also occurs in English. If a character’s short speech does not involve tense and pronoun changes, such as “What a nice day!” (What a nice day it is!/What a nice day it was!), “To win victory,” “Always going there by car,” it may be liable to the interpretation of either free indirect speech or free direct speech, especially when immediately preceded or followed by free indirect speech. We also find in English the blend of authorial statement and free indirect speech: when the tense and the pronoun selection are appropriate to either, both interpretations become possible (see Leech & Short 338-40), such as “He would never forgive her.”

In Chinese, these two kinds of English blend have their counterparts, but Chinese has peculiar “finite” blends which, by virtue of being free from verbal tense indicators and other formal discriminating features (e.g. pronoun), frequently give rise to a two-ways or three-ways ambiguous mode. For example: Ta dui ziji shuo kanlai gaocuole  He said to himself that he seemed to be wrong (indirect speech);  He said I seem to be wrong (a kind of free direct speech).

However, Chinese and English have more common features than differences in terms of speech presentation. In traditional Chinese novels, direct speech figures most prominently, which corresponds to direct speech in English. Interestingly, as regards classical Chinese novels, we have essential similarity behind superficial difference in terms of the direct mode. In classical Chinese fiction, there are no quotation marks, no comma or full stop, or punctuation of any kind. In addition, there is no paragraph division. This appears to be very different from English novels, classical or modern, where we always have punctuation marks. What we do have in Chinese classical novels is the reporting clause, most often in the form of “X 曰  yue ” (X said), which is an unequivocal marker of direct speech. As soon as we see this reporting clause, we know that what follows are the actual words uttered by the character. When punctuation marks started to be used in Chinese literary works, people simply added inverted commas to cases of speech preceded by “X yue ,” and the difference between Chinese and English direct speech disappears.

It should also be noted that, in classical Chinese novels, we do not have the kind of blend ambiguous between free direct speech (without quotation marks) and indirect speech. For example, Ta shuo tushuguan de zhuangxiu hai meiyou wan : He said that the library’s decoration hadn’t finished yet (indirect speech) or He said, the library’s decoration hasn’t finished yet (the kind of free direct speech without quotation marks), which occurs only after punctuation marks were introduced into Chinese literature.

Indirect speech is also frequently used in traditional Chinese novels, where if there exists a shift from first-person reference to third-person reference or other shifts marking the narrator’s viewpoint, it will be an unequivocal case of indirect speech, without allowing another interpretation, the same applies to free indirect speech. In traditional Chinese novels, unequivocally indirect speech and direct speech occur most frequently, which correspond to the two modes in English, beside the peculiar Chinese blends.

Commonality behind Different Tradition

If we compare early Chinese novels in the vernacular with 18th-century English fiction, we will find a notable difference: the Chinese ones are invariably in third-person narration, while the English novels are not only in third person but also in first person narration, such as Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders , Samuel Richardson’s Pamela or Laurence Stern’s Tristram Shandy . The exclusive use of third-person narration in early Chinese novels in the vernacular is to be accounted for by the fact that this genre developed directly from storytellers’ scripts. Because of the direct contact between the storyteller and the audience, oral narration does not accommodate first-person narration (neither does it accommodate multi-level narration). But gradually, written Chinese vernacular fiction separated from the oral tradition, and first-person narration is also used in this genre. And since then we can claim that both first- and third-person narration are modes shared by Chinese and English novels.

From the above discussion, we can see that the literatures in different countries may have more things in common than their first appearance. We may be able to find much sharedness under different academic terminology, beside language peculiarities and behind different traditions.

Future Research

In the future, we can continue to investigate what commonalities exist behind or beside differences between Chinese and English narratives in various areas, such as the manipulation of point of view or focalization, the arrangement of plot structure, or ways of narration.

Works Cited

Shen, Dan. “On the Transference of Modes of Speech from Chinese Narrative Fiction into English.” Comparative Literature Studies 28.4 (1991): 395-415.

Zheng, Naizang and Tang Zaixing, eds. A Dictionary of Literary Theory . Beijing: Guangming Daily Press, 1989.

Primary School Chinese Writing: Narrative Composition

In primary school, compositions mainly refer to narrative essays. As long as students master the writing techniques for narrative essays, primary school compositions will be almost a piece of old tackie!

What’s a narrative essay?

The main subject of a piece of narrative writing is usually the protagonist. You’d be required to write a story about the main character and what happened to him or her. 

Through the event, it should highlight a particular moral that could be thought-provoking, a commendation, a discouragement, etc. When written correctly, it’ll instantly elevate the essay. 

Many students, when tackling compositions in a narrative tone, might end up with a flat, linear account that is accompanied by fragmented description — mistakes like these may result in loss of points. 

Here are some of the best insider tips to inspire your child’s next narrative essay. 

Objectives of narrative essays

1) give lucid details about the time, place, people and events..

Fill the reader in on the who, when, where and how it happened.

2) Identify the moral of the incident.

Why are you telling this story? If you have chosen to narrate an incident, take note to take some time to mull over the incident and have a rundown of the incident in your mind so you’d be able to identify why you’re telling this particular story a.k.a. its moral.  

8 Tips To Improve Chinese Composition In Primary School

3) state the settings clearly. .

All events happen and develop within a certain setting. Was it rainy or sunny? Did it happen in a hospital or on the streets? Was it in the morning or late at night? Having a well-written setting puts the audience right into the story, expresses the writer’s feelings, and most importantly, liven the article without a hitch. 

4) Writing the story in chronological order.

To diminish any possibility of disorientation for the readers, it’s always sound to write the story as a sequence of events in which they occurred in time. Compose the narration in which the incident’s cause, process and result are crystal clear — your readers should never need to second guess what you’re trying to put across. Precision is key: the cause and effect and its development should also be explicated. 

5) The chronicle should revolve around a focal point.

Elucidate the most significant part of your narrative essay to create a deep impression to the readers; you don’t want readers to forget what was penned in the first half of the composition when they get to the last paragraph. 

6) Create strong, impressionable characters.

Characters are (almost) what moulds the story. Students should write about the characters’ language usage, expressions, actions and psychological activities meticulously and vividly — doing so define the character’s ideologies and better portray the moral.  

How to describe scenes precisely

To write a good scene, you’d have to pay attention to the following four pointers:

1) Explain the background.

Include the time, place, environment, etc., so that readers will know the kinds of social or natural environment the scene is established from.

For example: 

今天放了学以后，同学们一窝蜂冲出了校门，有的学生直奔学校附近的快餐店，有的往图书馆走去，我和几位朋友则一起到了球场准备来场足球比赛。正在踢球的同时，董子健在树旁指着地喊道：“大家快过来看这是什么！”我们逐渐停下动作，互望对方便充斥着好奇心向董子健跑去。

2) Embellish a clearly written outline with details. 

When writing the scene, the outline should be prominent to give readers a chance to percept the overall story in their own way. Within the general outline, there should be a featured paragraph, which should be elaborated yet concise. 

The Step-By-Step Guide To Write A Good Chinese Composition: Picture Composition For Higher Primary

 For example: 

“嘀嘀嘀嘀嘀”地铁门打开，小轩随人潮上了地铁。比繁忙时间早半小时的地铁里人并不太多，小轩便找了个空位坐了下来。窗外的风景像幻灯片一样，一眨眼一会儿高楼大厦，一会儿又是油绿绿的一片。他尤其喜欢路途中间出现的空阔草地，瞬间让他回想起小时候父母带着他和弟弟在草原上放风筝的场景，想着也特别舒心。弟弟小小的一个，但能量满满，特别喜欢赤脚在草地上奔跑，一点都不害怕危险，有时不小心摔了一跤，也笑嘻嘻地爬起来，父母担心坏了但都拿他没辙。小轩抬头一看，下一站就到了，拎起背包，准备迎接今天。

3) Talk about the atmosphere.

The atmosphere sets the readers’ emotions in the right path. Whatever the event is, you can always amp the writing with an atmosphere. For instance, if there’s a birthday celebration, the atmosphere is naturally joyous; tension is often associated with a basketball game; sadness comes with departure and so on.

For example:

裁判员一声令下，比赛开始了，运动员们像离弦的箭冲了出去，争先恐后，不分上下。在同学们的助威声中，他们竭尽全力，冲向终点。顿时人生鼎沸，加油声、喝彩声响彻整个操场，特别是快到终点时，欢呼声更是一浪高过一浪。

4) Write chronologically.

Generally speaking, penning a story in the narrative tone means describing various scenes in sequence. The moral of the story can be gradually shaped through these scenes. For example, when describing a Teachers’ Day celebration, you can first write about the joyous atmosphere, then outline the situation, and lastly move on to the principal, teachers, and students. By composing the article in this manner, the moral of the story will eventually be formed. 

早上路上堵车，爸爸着急地按着喇叭，双手紧握方向盘骂骂咧咧，而我在车后座静静吃着早餐。窗外的雨下个不停，好像是从昨晚就开始下的吧。好不容易过了交通较堵的地段，感觉车辆逐渐行驶得稍微快点了。过不一会儿爸爸望着窗外说：“哎呀，真糟糕，原来车祸呀！下雨开车就要小心点儿呀。” 爸爸从后视镜望着我说：“等你长大后开车一定要观察四周，一定要集中注意力，而且千万不能醉酒驾驶，知道了吗？”刚上小学的我似懂非懂地点了点头。

Here, we’d like to stress that when writing scenes, other than recording an overall description and partial description, you can also utilise spacial description. For example, during a basketball competition, not only can you write about the tension in the court, but you can also write about the boisterous scene within the audience. The combination of both perspectives can set off against each other to achieve a well-written narrative.  

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Chinese Narratologies

• © 2021
• Xiuyan Fu 0

Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China

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• Presents a more comprehensive, rational and systematic explanation for the origin and evolution of the Chinese narrative tradition
• Explores an interdisciplinary approach to research in narrative studies
• Provides a new perspective based on objects with “portrayed stories,” which helps readers better understand China’s narrative tradition

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Table of contents(13 chapters)

Front matter, ur-narrative and the sun myth, the “proto-ecological narrative” in shan hai jing, pre-qin era: emergence of chinese narrative tradition, the ante-narrative on bronze wares and the chinese narrative tradition, narrative and cultural analysis of porcelain, the magic of contract: a new analysis of the four classic chinese novels, the charm of intertextuality: a new insight into four folktales, fu and the evolution of chinese ancient narrative, narrative semantics of appearance description.

• Acoustic Narrative

“Focalization” and Its Chinese Translation

The creation of crane-fairy tales, in-depth interpretation of xu xun legend.

• Chinese Narrative Tradition
• Meta-narrative
• Ecological Narrative
• Local Culture
• Ancient Chinese Literature
• Things Narrative
• literary diction

Book Title : Chinese Narratologies

Authors : Xiuyan Fu

Translated by : Weisheng Tang

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7507-5

Publisher : Springer Singapore

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy , Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Copyright Information : Peking University Press 2021

Hardcover ISBN : 978-981-15-7506-8 Published: 21 August 2020

Softcover ISBN : 978-981-15-7509-9 Published: 21 August 2021

eBook ISBN : 978-981-15-7507-5 Published: 20 August 2020

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XLI, 262

Number of Illustrations : 6 b/w illustrations

Topics : Language and Literature , Cultural Anthropology , History of Religion

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Automatic Comment Generation for C hinese Student Narrative Essays

Zhexin Zhang , Jian Guan , Guowei Xu , Yixiang Tian , Minlie Huang

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[Automatic Comment Generation for Chinese Student Narrative Essays](https://aclanthology.org/2022.emnlp-demos.21) (Zhang et al., EMNLP 2022)

• Automatic Comment Generation for Chinese Student Narrative Essays (Zhang et al., EMNLP 2022)
• Zhexin Zhang, Jian Guan, Guowei Xu, Yixiang Tian, and Minlie Huang. 2022. Automatic Comment Generation for Chinese Student Narrative Essays . In Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing: System Demonstrations , pages 214–223, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Association for Computational Linguistics.

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• How to write a narrative essay | Example & tips

How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .

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Table of contents

What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.

When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.

A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.

These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.

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Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.

• Write a story about your first day of school.
• Write a story about your favorite holiday destination.

You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.

• Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself.
• Write about an achievement you are proud of. What did you accomplish, and how?

In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.

Narrative essays in college applications

When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.

For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.

In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.

An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?

The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.

Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.

When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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KSJ Announces 2024-25 Fellowship Class In August, the journalists will join KSJ in Cambridge to learn from some of the world’s top scientists and storytellers.

The internationally renowned Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is pleased to announce the ten esteemed science journalists who will make up its 2024-25 fellowship class. Selected from more than 180 applicants, the group comprises award-winning print, photo, and multimedia journalists hailing from around the globe. 

“It’s a pleasure to bring this smart and thoughtful group of science journalists to MIT,” said Deborah Blum, Knight Science Journalism Program director. “We were impressed by their diverse backgrounds and interests, their already outstanding work in the field, and their strong sense of global community. We’re looking forward to a great year working with them..”

This fellowship class brings expansive, award-winning expertise to KSJ. Together, this group of fellows has experience with: investigative reporting, climate reporting, YouTube science script writing, documentary production, radio production, narrative fiction writing, podcasting, founding a your own news site, and reporting for an AI squad.  

The fellows will spend the 2024-25 academic year in Cambridge studying at MIT and other leading research universities in the Boston area. They’ll also attend seminars by leading scientists and storytellers, take part in hands-on masterclasses and workshops, and visit world-renowned research laboratories. Each journalist will also pursue an independent research project, focused on a topic of their choice that advances science journalism in the public interest.

Now in its 41st year, the Knight Science Journalism program is supported by a generous endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and recognized around the world as the premier mid-career fellowship program for science writers, editors, and multimedia journalists. Since its founding, the program has hosted some 400 journalists representing media outlets from The New York Times to Le Monde, from CNN to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In addition to science journalism fellowships , the program publishes the award-winning digital magazine Undark and administers a national journalism prize, the Victor K. McElheny Award . The Knight Science Journalism Program’s academic home at MIT is the Department of Science, Technology and Society, which is part of the School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.

The 2024-25 Knight Science Journalism Fellows:

Fabiana Cambricoli is an award-winning Brazilian journalist based in São Paulo, working as a senior health correspondent for Estadão newspaper with a focus on in-depth and investigative stories. Before that, she contributed to major media outlets like Grupo Folha and was a fellow at ProPublica. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in public health from the University of São Paulo, receiving over ten awards and grants for her work. Cambricoli’s reporting uncovered government negligence during epidemics, highlighted health disparities, and investigated funding behind scientific disinformation. She also co-founded Fiquem Sabendo, a non-profit promoting transparency and supporting journalists in accessing public information.

Emily Foxhall is the climate reporter at The Texas Tribune, where she focuses on the clean energy transition and threats from climate change. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after two years at The Los Angeles Times and its community papers and seven years at The Houston Chronicle, where she covered the suburbs, Texas features, and the environment. She has won multiple Texas Managing Editors awards, including for community service journalism, and was part of the team named a 2018 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Hurricane Harvey. She is a Yale graduate.

Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin is a science journalist based in Egypt. He graduated from the faculty of medicine (Zagazig University) in Egypt, and worked as a psychiatrist before leaving medicine and beginning a career in science journalism, first as a head of the science section in Manshoor.com, then as an editor at Nature Arabic Edition. He is currently working as a Script Writer and the fact-checker of El-Daheeh, the leading science YouTube show in the Arab region. His writings have also appeared in several outlets including Scientific American Arabic Edition and Almanassa News. His main writing interest is the interaction between science, its history, and the human experience.

Bryce Hoye is a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Winnipeg. He covers a range of topics, from courts and crime to climate, conservation, and more. His stories appear on TV, radio, and online, and he has guest-hosted CBC Manitoba’s Weekend Morning Show and Radio Noon. He has produced national documentaries for CBC Radio, including for the weekly science program Quirks & Quarks. He has won several Radio Television Digital News Association national and regional awards. He previously worked in wildlife biology monitoring birds for several field seasons with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Jori Lewis writes narrative nonfiction that explores how people interact with their environments. Her reports and essays have been published in The Atlantic Magazine, Orion Magazine, and Emergence Magazine, among others, and she is a senior editor of Adi Magazine, a literary magazine of global politics. In 2022, she published her first book, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History, which was supported by the prestigious Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and a Silvers Grant for Work in Progress. It also won a James Beard Media Award and the Harriet Tubman Prize.   Photo credit: Elise Fitte Duval

Yarden Michaeli is a journalist serving as the science and climate editor of Haaretz, Israel’s sole paper of record. During his ten years as a writer, reporter, and editor at Haaretz, he became best known for editing the newspaper’s science vertical during the Covid-19 pandemic and founding its climate desk. Among other things, Yarden served as Haaretz’s first reporter on the ground during the war in Ukraine, covered the war in Gaza, and was dispatched to report on the forefront of the climate crisis during storm Daniel in Greece. Yarden was born in Israel and he is based in Tel Aviv. He has a Bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Economy from the Humboldt University in Berlin and he is a member of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi is a two-time winner of the CNN Africa photojournalist award. He is currently with Associated Press in Zimbabwe. Previously, he was the Chief Photographer at the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe. With an eye for detail and a passion for multi-format storytelling, he has managed to capture the essence of humanity in his photographs across Africa, Europe, and Asia. His dedication to his craft and hard work is instilled in other photojournalists in his past teaching role with the Norwegian Friedskorp, World Press Foundation in the Netherlands, the Pathshala Institute in South-East Asia, and in his pioneering gender and images work with SAMSO across the southern and East African region.

Aaron Scott is an award-winning multimedia journalist and the creator of the podcast Timber Wars, which was the first audio work to win the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program’s Victor K. McElheny Award, along with the National Headliner Award for Best Narrative Podcast and others. Most recently, he was a host of NPR’s science podcast Short Wave. Before that, he spent several years exploring the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest as a reporter/producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting’s television show Oregon Field Guide. His stories have appeared on NPR, Radiolab, This American Life, Outside Podcast, Reveal, and elsewhere. Photo Credit; Farrah Skeiky/NPR

Evan Urquhart is a freelance journalist whose work has focused on science and medical questions relating to the transgender community. Based in Charlottesville, VA, his stories have appeared on Slate, Politico, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and many other outlets nationwide. In 2022, Evan founded Assigned Media, a news site devoted to fact-checking the widespread misinformation relating to trans issues. He has appeared as an expert on propaganda and misinformation relating to trans issues on radio shows and podcasts including NPR’s St. Louis on the Air, Slate’s Outward, the American Prospect’s Left Anchor, What the Trans?, and It Could Happen Here.

Jane Zhang is a technology reporter and the China representative of Bloomberg’s global AI squad based in Hong Kong. She has over the years covered the Chinese internet and Beijing’s tensions with the US over tech supremacy before jumping feet-first into reporting China’s historical crackdown on its largest corporations including Alibaba. She has won awards for extensive on-the-ground reporting and exclusive interviews with industry heavyweights like Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. Her current focus is on covering the incipient AI technology and the regulations around it. Zhang holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

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China’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms

China has adopted some of the same misinformation tactics that Russia used ahead of the 2016 election, researchers and government officials say.

By Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers

Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials.

The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden.

In an echo of Russia’s influence campaign before the 2016 election, China appears to be trying to harness partisan divisions to undermine the Biden administration’s policies, despite recent efforts by the two countries to lower the temperature in their relations.

Some of the Chinese accounts impersonate fervent Trump fans, including one on X that purported to be “a father, husband and son” who was “MAGA all the way!!” The accounts mocked Mr. Biden’s age and shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit, or claimed that Mr. Biden was a Satanist pedophile while promoting Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

“I’ve never seen anything along those lines at all before,” said Elise Thomas, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization that uncovered a small group of the fake accounts posing as Trump supporters.

Ms. Thomas and other researchers have linked the new activity to a long-running network of accounts connected with the Chinese government known as Spamouflage. Several of the accounts they detailed previously posted pro-Beijing content in Mandarin — only to resurface in recent months under the guise of real Americans writing in English.

In a separate project, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research organization in Washington, identified 170 inauthentic pages and accounts on Facebook that have also pushed anti-American messages, including pointed attacks on Mr. Biden.

The effort has more successfully attracted actual users’ attention and become more difficult for researchers to identify than previous Chinese efforts to influence public opinion in the United States. Though researchers say the overall political tilt of the campaign remains unclear, it has raised the possibility that China’s government is calculating that a second Trump presidency, despite his sometimes hostile statements against the country, might be preferable to a second Biden term.

China’s activity has already raised alarms inside the American government.

In February, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that China was expanding its influence campaigns to “sow doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy and extend Beijing’s influence.” The report expressed concern that Beijing could use increasingly sophisticated methods to try to influence the American election “to sideline critics of China.”

Ms. Thomas, who has studied China’s information operations for years, said the new effort suggested a more subtle and sophisticated approach than previous campaigns. It was the first time, she said, that she had encountered Chinese accounts posing so persuasively as Trump-supporting Americans while managing to attract genuine engagement.

“The worry has always been, what if one day they wake up and are effective?” she said. “Potentially, this could be the beginning of them waking up and being effective.”

Online disinformation experts are looking ahead to the months before the November election with growing anxiety.

Intelligence assessments show Russia using increasingly subtle influence tactics in the United States to spread its case for isolationism as its war against Ukraine continues. Mock news sites are targeting Americans with Russian propaganda.

Efforts to beat back false narratives and conspiracy theories — already a difficult task — must now also contend with waning moderation efforts at social media platforms, political pushback , fast-advancing artificial intelligence technology and broad information fatigue .

Until now, China’s efforts to advance its ideology in the West struggled to gain traction, first as it pushed its official propaganda about the superiority of its culture and economy and later as it began denigrating democracy and stoking anti-American sentiment.

In the 2022 midterm elections, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant reported that Dragonbridge , an influence campaign linked to China, tried to discourage Americans from voting while highlighting U.S. political polarization. That campaign, which experimented with fake American personas posting content in the first person, was poorly executed and largely overlooked online, researchers said.

The recent campaigns connected to China have sought to exploit the divisions already apparent in American politics, joining the divisive debate over issues such as gay rights, immigration and crime mainly from a right-wing perspective.

In February, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a Chinese-linked account on X calling itself a Western name alongside a “MAGA 2024” reference shared a video from RT, the Russian television network controlled by the Kremlin, to claim that Mr. Biden and the Central Intelligence Agency had sent a neo-Nazi gangster to fight in Ukraine. (That narrative was debunked by the investigative group Bellingcat.)

The next day the post received an enormous boost when Alex Jones, the podcaster known for spreading false claims and conspiracy theories, shared it on the platform with his 2.2 million followers.

The account with the “MAGA 2024” reference had taken steps to appear authentic, describing itself as being run by a 43-year-old Trump supporter in Los Angeles. But it used a profile photo lifted from a Danish man’s travel blog, the institute’s report on the accounts said. Although the account opened 14 years ago, its first publicly visible post was last April. In that post, the account attempted, without evidence, to link Mr. Biden to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and registered sex offender.

At least four other similar accounts are also operating, Ms. Thomas said, all of them with ties to China. One account paid for a subscription on X, which offers perks like better promotion and a blue check mark that was, before Elon Musk bought the platform, a sign of verification conferred to users whose identities had been verified. Like the other accounts, it shared pro-Trump and anti-Biden claims, including the QAnon conspiracy theory and baseless election fraud accusations .

The posts included exhortations to “be strong ourselves, not smear China and create rumors,” awkward phrases like “how dare?” instead of “how dare you?” and signs that the user’s web browser had been set to Mandarin.

One of the accounts seemed to slip up in May when it responded to another post in Mandarin; another was posting primarily in Mandarin until last spring, when it briefly went silent before resurfacing with all-English content. The accounts denounced efforts by American lawmakers to ban the popular TikTok app , which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as a form of “true authoritarianism” orchestrated by Israel and as a tool for Mr. Biden to undermine China.

The accounts sometimes amplified or repeated content from the Chinese influence campaign Spamouflage , which was first identified in 2019 and linked to an arm of the Ministry of Public Security. It once posted content almost exclusively in Chinese to attack the Communist Party’s critics and protesters in Hong Kong.

It has pivoted in recent years to focus on the United States, portraying the country as overwhelmed by chaos . By 2020, it was posting in English and criticizing American foreign policy, as well as domestic issues in the United States, including its response to Covid-19 and natural disasters, like the wildfires in Hawaii last year.

China, which has denied interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, now appears to be building a network of accounts across many platforms to put to use in November. “This is reminiscent of Russia’s style of operations, but the difference is more the intensity of this operation,” said Margot Fulde-Hardy, a former analyst at Viginum, the government agency in France that combats disinformation online.

In the past, many Spamouflage accounts followed one another, posted sloppily in several languages and simultaneously blitzed social media users with identical messages across multiple platforms.

The newer accounts are trickier to find because they are trying to build an organic following and appear to be controlled by humans rather than automated bots. One of the accounts on X also had linked profiles on Instagram and Threads, creating an appearance of authenticity.

Meta, which owns Instagram and Threads, last year removed thousands of inauthentic accounts linked to Spamouflage on Facebook and others on Instagram. It called one network it had removed “the largest known cross-platform influence operation to date.” Hundreds of related accounts remained on other platforms, including TikTok, X, LiveJournal and Blogspot, Meta said.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies documented a new coordinated group of Chinese accounts linked to a Facebook page with 3,000 followers called the War of Somethings. The report underscores the persistence of China’s efforts despite Meta’s repeated efforts to take down Spamouflage accounts.

“What we’re seeing,” said Max Lesser, a senior analyst with the foundation, “is the campaign just continues, undeterred.”

Tiffany Hsu reports on misinformation and disinformation and its origins, movement and consequences. She has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Tiffany Hsu

Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation for The Times. He has worked in Washington, Moscow, Baghdad and Beijing, where he contributed to the articles that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2021. He is also the author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.” More about Steven Lee Myers

Who is Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s pick for running mate?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , who is running for president as an independent candidate, chose Bay Area tech lawyer and megadonor Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Kennedy made the announcement Tuesday in Shanahan’s hometown of Oakland, Calif.

In making the announcement, Kennedy said he was looking for someone who shared his “passion for wholesome, healthy foods, chemical-free for regenerative agriculture, for good soils.” He said he was also looking for someone who has a “deep inside knowledge of how big tech uses AI to manipulate the public,” and someone with “strong ideas about how to reverse dire threats to democracy and our freedoms.”

Kennedy said that Shanahan, like him, grew disillusioned with the government and the Democratic Party.

“Our values didn’t change, but the Democratic Party did,” he said.

A political newcomer, Shanahan donated to Kennedy’s campaign and the super PAC supporting his bid — including $4 million she told the New York Times went to help pay for the commercial that American Values 2024 ran for him during the Super Bowl. She has never held elected office but has deep roots in the tech world and, according to Federal Election Commission filings, previously donated to Democratic campaigns.

As she introduced herself to a crowd of Kennedy supporters on Tuesday, Shanahan admitted that as “recently as a year ago, I didn’t think much of Bobby Kennedy.”

“I didn’t think much of him, because I didn’t know much. All I had was the mainstream media narrative,” she said. “But then a friend pulled me aside one day and said, ‘Nicole, please, do me a favor. Just listen to one interview with Bobby Kennedy. Just one.’”

Shanahan said it was his “commitment to peace and to the welfare of hard-working people in America that drew me, as a person of compassion, to his candidacy.”

“I saw a person of intelligence, of compassion, and of reason,” she said. “I saw a fellow lawyer who had committed himself to finding the truth and fighting for the environment and for people. I discovered a person who speaks out on issues that, even though they are critically important to human health and welfare, are consistently ignored by our government. And for the first time in a long time, I felt hope for our democracy.”

Shanahan, at the rally, officially renounced her membership in the Democratic Party, saying she grew disillusioned with it because it has “lost its way.”

Here’s what you need to know about Shanahan as she joins Kennedy to challenge former president Donald Trump and President Biden in November.

The California native was previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin

Shanahan, 38, was born in Oakland to a Chinese immigrant mother and a father who suffered from mental illness. In an essay published by People last year, Shanahan wrote that she, as a child, learned that “bad things happen, injustice happens, but there are always tools for overcoming them, it’s a matter of relentless commitment to oneself. I will never stop seeking self-actualization for myself, my family, and for the communities I serve.”

In an interview with Puck published in 2022, Shanahan said her mother came to the United States through family sponsorship and worked as a maid to make ends meet. Shanahan has said that she grew up on welfare, and she told Puck that she “never felt poor” growing up “because I believed the safety nets we had in the ’90s were actually quite good. I lived off them.”

“I survived off them, and dare I say I felt I had the opportunity to thrive,” she said.

Per her LinkedIn page, she received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound and her law degree from Santa Clara University.

From 2018 to 2023, Shanahan was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The two share a daughter.

Last year, Shanahan “ committed ” to her partner, Jacob Strumwasser, who formerly worked on Wall Street and is now an adviser at a bitcoin engineering firm.

Formerly a tech entrepreneur, Shanahan now works in philanthropy

In the essay for People, Shanahan said she spends most of her time “working for climate solutions, social justice, and women’s reproductive science,” as well as focusing on autism research.

“About two years ago our daughter was diagnosed with autism, and by virtue of that diagnosis I have a new cause to focus attention on (as has been typical of my experiences, I rarely seek out causes to support, they find me),” she wrote in the essay. “… I’ve been working with researchers to understand the variations in autism, the biological markers that might help us diagnose autism earlier, and even what causes autism. It is amazing what we’re learning, and we are already seeing overlaps with the work occurring in reproductive longevity, climate, and social justice.”

Shanahan founded the Bia-Echo Foundation , whose stated goal, according to its website, is to invest in “changemakers” who are “tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges … Reproductive Longevity & Equality, Criminal Justice Reform and a Healthy and Livable Planet.”

Shanahan told Puck in 2022 that her focus on reproductive longevity came from personal experience.

“A lived experience that so many women have in this world today,” she said. “Which is, late 20s, early 30s, entering what should be the beginning of the prime of your career, and feeling an early form of death. You’re losing something. Imagine going blind or losing the ability to hear. This is the ability to do something so fundamental to the human experience, to have a baby, to be a mother, to start a family.”

Shanahan said that she was trying to freeze embryos but that medical conditions made her realize that she wasn’t “actually able to successfully go through a full IVF round.”

“At the age of, at that point, 30, I believed I wasn’t going to be able to have children,” she said. “And I then felt that it was my responsibility to help other women in similar situations feel more empowered. Because I felt so helpless.”

Shanahan also said she grew concerned over the future of Roe v. Wade after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, did not step down from the Supreme Court during the Obama administration, and that made her realize working on reproductive longevity “was going to be that much more important in a world where Roe didn’t exist.”

“Seeing such a great division in this country … I think the division is so unfortunate, because at the end of the day, I think we all agree that life is precious, so precious,” she told Puck. “And I think the narrative of pro-life versus pro-choice is just not the right one for today. The one for today is: Let’s use technology as a connector to bring us together, and not divide us.”

Shanahan has said that the “execution” of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the Supreme Court decision that ended Roe — “is enraging.”

“I think that how we evolve past this moment is something that we don’t understand yet as a community, on either side of the aisle,” she said. “But we must evolve, and I think that science helps us evolve … I think we can bridge this empathy gap that gets us to a place where we evolve to something even better than Roe .”

Before turning to philanthropy, Shanahan founded ClearAccessIP , a company that used AI to help owners of intellectual assets develop and manage their technology. Shanahan also served as a fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics where, according to the program’s website , she “launched the Smart Prosecution project, a multi-disciplinary effort applying data science to the prosecutorial process.”

She has donated to Democratic candidates before — including Biden

Shanahan donated $25,000 to the joint fundraising effort between Biden’s 2020 campaign and the Democratic Party, per FEC filings . Shanahan also contributed to the campaigns of Democrats Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg in that election cycle before backing Biden .

During the rally Tuesday, Shanahan officially left the Democratic Party and encouraged other disillusioned members of the party to join her and Kennedy in their campaign.

“The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of compassion and peace, it is supposed to be the party of diplomacy and science,” she said. “While I know those ideals still abide within many Democrats, I want to point out that the party has lost its way. In its leadership, in its institutions, it has become interested in elitism, celebrity and winning at all costs, even if that means turning a blind eye on issues they all know to be true.

“I know because I’ve been in those circles for the last eight years, and I have grown increasingly tired of it,” she added. “It wasn’t until I met Bobby and the people supporting him that I felt any hope in the outcome of this election.”

She also made an appeal to Republicans who are at odds with their party, saying she has “seen conservative voters with new eyes too.”

“I have met hunters and farmers that are some of the staunchest conservationists I have ever known, who understand ecosystems better than most,” she said. “I have met mothers protecting their children who are searching every possible avenue for their health. And yet the Republican Party, like the Democratic, is letting them down because the actions of the party are diverting from the values that actually support individual freedom.”

Shanahan’s newsiest campaign donation came in the shape of a 30-second Super Bowl ad. The ad, sponsored by the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s bid, re-created a vintage political ad used to promote John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign and recast it in support of his nephew’s independent 2024 campaign — and drew condemnation from several members of the Kennedy family. The New York Times reported that Shanahan was a “major source” of the funding and creative guidance behind the $4 million ad. In an interview with the Times, Shanahan said that she wanted to highlight that Kennedy is running for president, and that she was motivated by her concerns over the environment, vaccines and children’s health.

“I do wonder about vaccine injuries,” she told the Times, clarifying that she is “not an anti-vaxxer” but wanted more screening of risks for vaccinations. “I think there needs to be a space to have these conversations.”

Election 2024

Get the latest news on the 2024 election from our reporters on the campaign trail and in Washington.

Who is running? President Biden and Donald Trump both secured their parties’ nominations for the presidency , formalizing a general-election rematch.

Key issues: Compare where the candidates stand on such issues as abortion, climate and the economy.

Key dates and events: From January to June, voters in all states and U.S. territories will pick their party’s nominee for president ahead of the summer conventions. Here are key dates and events on the 2024 election calendar .

• Biden poised to raise $25 million at fundraiser with Obama, Clinton March 28, 2024 Biden poised to raise $25 million at fundraiser with Obama, Clinton March 28, 2024
• Democrat who ran heavily on abortion rights, IVF wins Alabama special election March 26, 2024 Democrat who ran heavily on abortion rights, IVF wins Alabama special election March 26, 2024
• Trump reels from competing court decisions as trials disrupt campaign March 25, 2024 Trump reels from competing court decisions as trials disrupt campaign March 25, 2024

How Nicole Shanahan rose through tech and law to RFK Jr.'s ticket

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has found an unlikely — but like-minded — running mate for his independent presidential ticket . 

Tech lawyer Nicole Shanahan has no government experience and no national profile, and she is one of the most unusual selections for a high-profile running mate in recent memory. She is far less known than some of the other names Kennedy considered, including NFL star Aaron Rodgers and actor and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. 

But what she does offer is a similar worldview to Kennedy's, presumed loyalty to the person who plucked her from relative obscurity and — perhaps most important — enormous wealth that the Kennedy-Shanahan campaign could tap far in excess of contribution limits that would apply to donors who are not themselves candidates.

Shanahan, 38, also offers a youth and vitality that Kennedy often says is necessary in politics. And she has already demonstrated her commitment to Kennedy’s cause, revealing in February that she donated $4 million to a pro-Kennedy super PAC to help pay for a Super Bowl ad .

Despite mostly supporting progressive and center-left Democrats in the past, Shanahan has said that she was motivated to support Kennedy in part because of concerns about children’s health and the environment, including vaccines, and she has also expressed opposition to the research money that has poured into the in-vitro fertilization industry.

She defended Kennedy’s advocacy against vaccines to Newsweek this year, saying that “being called an anti-vaxxer is so unfair” and that “we need to have a safe space” to discuss the issue.

A life in the world's tech capital

Shanahan, a tech lawyer and entrepreneur turned philanthropist from Oakland, California, has lived a life that has intersected with some of the most important technologies and business titans in Silicon Valley.

Shanahan, born to parents who struggled financially, said that her family was on food stamps and that she started working at age 12 to help make ends meet. 

“My dad was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia when I was 9, and my Chinese-born mom had only been in the United States for two years when I was born,” she told San Francisco magazine for a profile in 2021. “So not only was there no money, there was almost no parental guidance, and as you can imagine with a mentally ill father, there was lots of chaos and fear.”

She credits the internet with helping her escape, and technology would come to dominate her life after she graduated from the University of Puget Sound and returned to the Bay Area, attending Santa Clara University School of Law and then diving into the intersection of the legal and tech worlds.

In a landscape where innovation often outpaces regulation, she founded ClearAccessIP, a company that uses artificial intelligence technology to help patent holders manage their intellectual property, according to its website. The company was acquired by IPwe in 2020.

Shanahan married Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2018 and divorced him in 2022. That year, The Wall Street Journal reported that she had an affair with billionaire Elon Musk, but both Shanahan and Musk have denied the accusation. The Journal has stood by its reporting.

“The WSJ’s narrative that an affair with Elon Musk led to the end of my marriage was about as accurate as claiming that the body heat of polar bears is responsible for the melting of the Arctic ice caps,” she wrote last year in a first-person essay for People. “It felt senseless and cruel.”

After the divorce from Brin, who is worth an estimated $121 billion, according to Forbes, she transitioned to full-time philanthropy work. 

Shanahan’s charity, the Bia-Echo Foundation , says its mission is to “create a multiplying effect” on issues Shanahan cares about, including “reproductive longevity & equality, criminal justice reform and a healthy & livable planet.”

She started that work through her ex-husband’s foundation, announcing a $100 million commitment in 2019 to programs aimed at helping women become pregnant later in life, in addition to exploring solutions to criminal justice reform and climate change. 

Fertility issues have been a focus of her foundation and her investment firm, Planeta Ventures, and a later gift of $6 million helped create the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality; she said her goal is to help women be able to have children into their mid-50s .

However, Shanahan has advocated against supporting IVF research, because, in her view, it detracts from understanding the root causes of infertility. And she has argued the procedure is “ sold irresponsibly ” and has become more of a “commercial endeavor” than a scientific one, calling its promise “one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”

“Many of the IVF clinics are financially incentivized to offer you egg freezing and IVF and not incentivized to offer you other fertility services,” Shanahan told The New Yorker last year.

“I’m so often told that IVF is this great technology, and I always get questioned why I’m not more supportive of IVF,” she said in an online video series . “I’ve tried to imagine where we would be as a field if all of the money that has been invested in IVF and all of the money that’s been invested into marketing IVF and all of the government money that has been invested in subsidizing IVF, if just 10% of that went into reproductive longevity, research and fundamental research.”

That view could be especially relevant this year as both parties debate abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. An Alabama Supreme Court ruling this year that frozen embryos created for IVF were people briefly halted procedures in the state — and made the issue a national political hot button.

Politicians from both parties rushed to voice their support for IVF, and Democrats argued that longtime GOP positioning on abortion legislation and “personhood” laws would have the effect of restricting IVF.

Her position on vaccines and other past advocacy

Shanahan’s 2023 essay also reveals how her experience with the reporting around her marriage led her to adopt a more jaundiced view of the news media, which is a frequent target of Kennedy’s.

“They displayed a reckless thirst for a popular hit piece, no matter the cost it would have on my life,” she wrote.

She and Brin had a daughter, Echo, who was diagnosed with autism at a young age. Shanahan has said she is committed to investing her wealth in understanding the causes and treatments of the disorder.

Many vaccine skeptics, including Kennedy, have said vaccines cause autism — even though experts say there is no evidence supporting the claim and the key research papers that made the link were later retracted , with their lead author widely discredited after he was found to have manipulated his data .

Kennedy took a leave from his post as the leader of the country’s best-funded anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense, to run for president, and he has since included a number of anti-vaccine activists in his campaign. 

Last summer, Shanahan “ committed ” to her partner, Jacob Strumwasser, an executive of a company working on “next-generation of bitcoin financial software,” whom she met at Burning Man.

“We were living parallel surfing lives,” she told People last year, “and then we met at Burning Man, which is the driest place on the planet.”

Kennedy kicked off his campaign with a speech at a Bitcoin convention in Miami, which was his first public appearance as a candidate. And he has spoken often about the promise of cryptocurrency. 

Politically, Shanahan has donated heavily to Democrats and progressive causes, such as criminal justice reform ballot measures, according to campaign finance records. 

In 2020, she gave $2,800 to Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and co-hosted a fundraiser for Buttigieg, who is the transportation secretary. She also gave $2,800 to Democratic contender Marianne Williamson during the last election cycle, before she donated $25,000 to the fundraising efforts backing Joe Biden. She also gave the maximum $6,600 to Kennedy’s campaign last year, before she announced the larger gift to the super PAC for the Super Bowl ads.

Shanahan also gave to several Democratic congressional candidates in battleground districts in 2018. And she gave the maximum $5,400 contribution to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Asked in 2022 about her politics, she told Puck: “I don’t think about it in terms of party. I think about it in terms of people, places and ideas.” That attitude reflects Kennedy’s own rhetoric, especially since he left the Democratic presidential primary campaign to run as an independent. 

While there is no obvious precedent for vice presidential candidates bankrolling their campaigns, Federal Election Commission rules exempt candidates funding their own campaigns from contribution limits, so it appears she would be able to contribute or lend as much money as she wants to the Kennedy campaign. 

The campaign needs money to fund its ballot access work, including the painstaking and expensive work of gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures from dozens of states. 

While major-party candidates typically wait until the summer to announce their running mates, one reason Kennedy did so now is because deadlines are coming up in some states that require submission of both names on tickets to get on ballots.

Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior politics reporter for NBC News.