Biography

Leon Jaroff writes about science and medicine as a contributor to TIME. Among the cover stories he has written for the magazine are "Science Under Siege," "Secrets of Heredity" (The Human Genome Project) "Great Ball of Fire (The Sun), "Viruses," "Allergies," "The Iceman's Secrets," "The Man's Cancer (Prostate Cancer)" and "Life on Mars."

Jaroff joined Time Inc. in New York as an editorial trainee for LIFE magazine in 1951 and became a LIFE reporter later that year. In 1954 he became a LIFE correspondent, first in Detroit and then in Chicago. In 1958 he moved to TIME magazine and remained in the Chicago bureau as a correspondent, with a brief stint in Los Angeles, until he was named Detroit bureau chief in December 1960.

In 1964 Jaroff returned to New York as a contributing editor of TIME in the Business section. In 1966 he was made an associate editor and became TIME's chief science writer, writing all TIME cover stories of the U.S. space and moon landing program through 1969. In 1970 he was appointed a senior editor and, as such, edited nearly all of TIME's back-of-the-book sections including Sports, Science, Behavior, The Sexes, Medicine and Environment.

TIME science articles written or edited by Jaroff have won a number of awards. His stories on black holes and Richard Leakey won first prize and honorable mention, respectively, from American Association for the Advancement of Science for the best science stories in 1978. A 1975 cover story on the brain and a 1988 cover story on viruses won top journalism awards from the American Medical Association. His 1991 cover "Allergies" won the top award from the American College of Alergy and Immunology.

In April 1980, Jaroff became the founding managing editor of DISCOVER, the newsmagazine of science. During his more than four years at the helm of DISCOVER, articles edited by Jaroff won the American Institute of Physics Award twice. He is also author of The New Genetics (Whittle Communications; 1991) which is about the Human Genome Project and its impact on medicine.

A native of Detroit, Jaroff graduated in 1950 with degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from the University of Michigan, where he was managing editor of the Michigan Daily. Following graduation, he worked briefly for the technical magazine Material & Methods before joining Time Inc.

Jaroff and his wife, Mary Kay Moran, live in East Hampton, N.Y. and Manhattan.