Peter Tarr's career in journalism, which spans more than 25 years, has been focused on international affairs, and, more recently, scientific subject matter, especially molecular biology, biotechnology, and neuroscience. He has a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, having specialized in science writing. He also has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American History from Cornell University. While at Cornell he developed and for several years taught a writing course focusing on journalistic ethics. A former newspaper reporter, foreign correspondent for the Asian Wall Street Journal, and editor at various U.S.-based science and medical publications, he is currently Senior Science Writer at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island and a contributor to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin among other publications. He is engaged in two book projects, A Certain Blindness (U.S. intellectual history); and Science Nationalism: National Science Policy in a Transnational Age (History of Science).