Hopkins Grad Named Pulitzer Finalist

A grad was among the Pulitzer Prize finalists announced Monday.

Mara Hvistendahl, who graduated in 1998, was named one of two finalists in the general nonfiction category for her book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

Hvistendahl’s book tells the story of 160 million females “missing” from Asia’s population because of sex-selective abortion. That’s more than the entire female population of the United States, and it’s skewing the sex ratio of the entire world.

Hvistendahl, who spent most of the past decade in China, started studying Chinese in Hopkins—just one of four students in the Hopkins High School class at the time.

She graduated from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Hvistendahl has written for Popular Science and Scientific American and was a correspondent for Science magazine.

to read a Patch interview with Hvistendahl.

Stay up to date on all your local news. Sign up for the Hopkins Patch newsletter, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Editor James Warden's Pinterest boards.