Katarina Zimmer is a science and environment journalist covering many facets of the living world, from the inner mechanics of genes and cells and the roots of health and disease to the evolution of species and the vibrant ecosystems they form. She also documents the mounting threats to our planet’s oceans, forests, and climate—and ways to protect them.

Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Knowable Magazine, BBC, National Geographic, Undark, Scientific American, Grist, and elsewhere. She also writes for professional audiences about the nitty-gritty of scientific research in publications including The Scientist, Proto Magazine, and Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

“The Ultimate Incubator,” her 2021 cover story for IEEE Spectrum about efforts to develop an artificial placenta to help premature infants survive, was a finalist for the US National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation’s annual trade journalism awards. Her 2019 story for National Geographic about how felling forests can spark new infectious disease outbreaks featured in John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight episode on pandemics.

Prior to venturing into journalism, she developed a machine learning algorithm to identify the species of bat based on recordings of echolocation calls, until she realized she was too greedy to focus on one patch of life science.

She also enjoys mentoring other freelance science and/or environment journalists and has been a mentor for the Solutions Journalism Network, The Open Notebook’s Sharon Dunwoody science journalism mentoring program and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Mass Media Fellowship mentoring program. She is currently accepting new mentees in a private capacity.

She’s grateful to the organizations that have supported her work through grants and fellowships, including the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity’s investigative journalism fellowship (2017), the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program at MIT’s fact checking workshop (2019), and the Falling Wall Foundation’s journalism fellowship (2023).

If you’d like to work with her or have a tip for a story, please get in touch. Otherwise, enjoy reading!

Photo by Carolanne Leslie