The Atavist is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and employs a rotating collection of writers, editors, fact-checkers and other creative types. You’ll find credits at the end of each story. The principal folks behind it are:

Evan Ratliff (co-founder, editor): Evan is an award-winning journalist and contributing editor at Wired magazine. In addition to Wired, his writing appears in The New Yorker, Outside, National Geographic, and many other publications. He is the co-author of Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World (HarperCollins, 2005). His 2009 story “Vanish,” about his attempt to disappear and the public’s effort to find him, was a finalist for the  National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, and his writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best of Technology Writing 2006 and 2010, and The Best American Nonrequired Writing 2010. Evan also serves as the story editor for Pop-Up Magazine, the world’s first live magazine.

Jefferson Rabb (co-founder, creative director): Jeff is a programmer, Web designer, app developer, and game builder who has been creating innovative Web sites for the publishing world for over a decade. He has created a unique digital presence for best-selling authors Haruki Murakami, Jhumpa Lahiri, Laura Hillenbrand, Joshua Ferris, Gary Shteyngart, and many others. He previously worked on staff at MTV.com, Sephora.com, The Shooting Gallery, and Mutation Labs. His non-Atavist work can be found here.

Stefanie Syman (head of strategy and business development): Stefanie a writer, editor, and entrepreneur with deep experience in the world of digital publishing. In 1995, she was the co-founder and founding editor of FEED, an award-winning Web magazine. In 2000, she was part of the creative team that founded Plastic.com, a content and community site focused on pop culture. In 2005, as editorial director, she helped launch lime.com, a site focused on healthy living and sustainability. She is the author of The Subtle Body (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), the surprising story of yoga’s transformation from a centuries-old spiritual discipline to a multibillion-dollar American industry. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and Vogue.

Jeff Sisson (developer): Jeff writes artful code, often about cities. Recent projects have shown at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, are published in The New City Reader and the Younger Than Jesus Artist Directory, and are continuously updated online at http://ilikenicethings.com/.

Alissa Quart (senior editor): Alissa is the author of two non-fiction books, Branded (Basic Books, 2003) and Hothouse Kids (Penguin Press, 2006), and has written long-form pieces for Mother Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, and many other publications. She was a 2010 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, is a contributing editor and columnist for Columbia Journalism Review, and teaches at Columbia University School of Journalism.

Olivia Koski (producer): Olivia worked as a laser engineer and technology transition specialist at Lockheed Martin until moving to New York to complete a master’s in Science Journalism at New York University. Her writing has appeared in Wired and Popular Mechanics, and she has lectured about the fiction and science of laser weapons at science cafes around New York. She is an associate of the U.K.-based performance outreach group Guerilla Science and is a collaborative fellow at UnionDocs, a Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn.

Nicholas Thompson (co-founder, consultant): Nick is a senior editor at The New Yorker and the critically acclaimed author of The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War (Henry Holt, 2009). He is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a contributing editor on Bloomberg Television. He is a technology contributor for CNN International who appears every Tuesday night on “World Business Today” and serves as a panelist for “Connect the World.” Prior to The New Yorker, he was a senior editor at Wired magazine, a senior editor at Legal Affairs, and an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has written about politics, technology, and the law for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications.

The Atavist is an independent publishing venture, and is neither sponsored nor endorsed by any of the above publishers or organizations.

Our advisers include:

Steven Johnson: bestselling author of seven books, including The Ghost Map and Everything Bad is Good for You, and the founder of Web sites and companies including: Feed, outside.in, and most recently, Findings. More on Steven at stevenberlinjohnson.com.

Lincoln Caplan: former editor and president of Legal Affairs; former staff writer at The New Yorker; five time author; and current member of The New York Times editorial board.

Katrina Heron: former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine; former senior editor at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine; and current Berkeley-based editor, writer, and director of the Chez Panisse Foundation.

Douglas McGray: writer for This American Life, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications; senior fellow at the New America Foundation; and co-founder and editor-in-chief of Pop-Up Magazine.

John Kerner: marketing executive who has held senior consumer marketing positions at Time Inc. and Rodale, overseeing magazine brands including Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health, Runner’s World, and Golf Magazine.