Jake Bittle

Contributing Writer

Jake Bittle is a freelance reporter based in Brooklyn, New York, who covers climate change, housing, and politics. He’s been writing and fact-checking for Popular Science since 2018.

Highlights

Reporter with diverse interests spanning from science to politics to social issues
Author of a forthcoming book about climate migration for Simon & Schuster
Has fact-checked for PopSci and numerous other publications

Experience

Jake has spent four years as a freelance reporter covering a wide variety of topics including climate change, housing, homelessness, politics, science, and the U.S. Postal Service for outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, The New Republic, PopSci, and several more. He’s the author of The Great Displacement, a narrative nonfiction book about climate migration, which will be published in 2022 by Simon & Schuster. Jake has a great deal of experience covering the impacts of climate change on housing, infrastructure, and markets, and his work has been featured in outlets like Longreads, Arts & Letters Daily, NPR, and The Paris Review. He’s also spent four years as a professional fact-checker for outlets like PopSci and New York Magazine as well as for several book projects.

Education

Jake received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Chicago in 2017.

Favorite weird science fact

The fastest animal on land relative to its own size is a dust mite native to Southern California, which can travel 322 of its own body lengths per second. This was in one of the first articles Jake fact-checked for PopSci.