Victor K. McElheny is a longtime science writer who worked for The Charlotte Observer, Science magazine, The Boston Globe and The New York Times, reporting on such topics as science in Antarctica and Europe, the Apollo lunar landing program and the green revolution in Asia. At The Times during the 1970s, he founded one of the first technology columns in American newspapers.
His freelance work has included numerous articles for newspapers and magazines as well as television writing and appearances. In 1978 he joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as the first director of the Banbury Center for conferences on environmental health risks and fundamental biology. He came to MIT in 1982 to create the fellowships program with funding from the Sloan Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.