Katie L. Burke is an award-winning features editor and science journalist. She is senior contributing editor at American Scientist.
Illustration by Julia Bollinger
Selected Writing
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![A hermit crab walks on an exercise wheel]()
Saving Hermit Crabs by Breeding Them in the Suburbs - The New York Times
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![A headshot of aerosol engineer Linsey Marr]()
Changing Policies on COVID-19 Transmission (2023 Apex Award winner)
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![The growth in team size across science—including in physics, where researchers at CERN, pictured sitting around a large circular desk, set the record for the most authors on a journal article—can harm early-career scientists, a new study finds.]()
Larger teams worsen academic career prospects (Science)
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![Anna Ortega tracks deer fawn in western Wyoming as part of her consultancy firm, which she set up in part to be closer to family. Credit: Benjamin Kraushaar]()
PhD scientists who forged a career off the beaten track (Nature Careers)
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![Public health expert Jenny Hall stands in front of her table for her outreach project Ticks in Virginia at a public health fair]()
Ticks Are Thriving in Southwest Virginia. Here’s What That Means for Your Health. (Radio IQ/Climate Central)
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![The logo for the PRX radio show The World]()
Germany’s long-time coal region has cleaner air — but still not clean enough - The World
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2019 Editor's Letter for Special Issue
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Fixing Broken Biological Clocks
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The Giant Tadpole That Never Got Its Legs
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Scientists in the Wake of the Hurricanes
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What Might Happen to COVID-19 Over Time?
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Flint Water Crisis Yields Hard Lessons in Science and Ethics
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Ancient Fire Scars of the Petrified Forest
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![A rare 18th century book containing nature prints is displayed at the Herbaruim library at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London]()
Book Review: The Hidden Extinction Crisis of Natural Historians
Selected Editing
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![Female wood duck leaves nest box]()
Putting Eggs in Many Baskets (American Scientist's First Digital Feature, EXCEL and Apex Awards winner)
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![John James Audubon produced this lithograph of a female mountain lion and her cub in the 1840s after an expedition to the Missouri River.]()
America's Cat Is on the Comeback (EXCEL Award-winning feature)
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![This 1926 public health campaign poster, titled “Namo Great Buddha Policeman,” was distributed by the Japanese colonial government. It shows a policeman holding prayer beads in his left hand and a sword in his right.]()
The History of Vaccine Uptake in Taiwan (Popular Article of 2022)
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![This 1736 painting by Carle van Loo, Bear Hunt, uses violent and warlike imagery to depict attitudes toward large predators at the time.]()
A Landscape of Fear of Humans (Popular Article of 2022)
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![engineers from the StEER (Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance) Network assess damage from Hurricane Dorian.]()
A New System for Disaster Research
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![The Sun sets over rice paddies and the embankment that separates local farms from the Kapotaksma River in Bangladesh. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s area is less than five meters above sea level.]()
A Delta in Peril
Editing Services
Developmental editing & writing coaching for science content:
Six-month book coaching package to crank out that book
Writing coaching to produce a feature or personal essay aimed at getting a big byline
Developmental editing for books, features, op-eds, and news stories