Laplante, Matthew: - Matthew D. LaPlante is an associate professor of journalism at Utah State University, where he teaches news reporting, narrative non-fiction writing, and crisis reporting. He has reported from more than a dozen nations, including Iraq, Cuba, Ethiopia, and El Salvador, and his work has appeared in Washington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, CNN.com, and numerous other publications. LaPlante is the author of Superlative: The Biology of Extremes and cowriter of several books on the intersection of scientific discovery and society.