Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer is the science columnist for the New York Times and the author of 15 books. His latest book is Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. His previous books include Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive and She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Both books were finalists the PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh also earned the National Academies Communication Award and the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers and was a finalist for the Baillie-Gifford Prize for Nonfiction. He has won fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for his books.
At the Times, Zimmer contributed to the newspaper’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Zimmer has also written hundreds of articles for magazines including National Geographic, Wired, The Atlantic, and Scientific American. He is a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award. In addition, Zimmer has been awarded the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, an Online Journalism Award, and the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers. His articles have been anthologized in both The Best American Science Writing series and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He served as the guest editor of the 2023 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing.
Courses:
“Writing about Science, Medicine, and the Environment,” an undergraduate seminar.
Zimmer also teaches workshops for Yale science graduate students in science communication.
Selected Books:
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. Dutton, 2025
Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive. Dutton, 2021.
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Past and Future of Heredity. Dutton, 2018.
A Planet of Viruses. University of Chicago Press. First edition, 2011; second edition 2015; third edition 2021.
Evolution: Making Sense of Life. Macmillan. First edition, 2012; second edition 2015; third edition, 2019. Co-authored with evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen.
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life. Pantheon, 2008.
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World. Free Press, 2004.
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures. Free Press, 2000.
Selected Articles (full archive at carlzimmer.com)
“Do We Need Language to Think?” The New York Times, June 19, 2024
“Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs.” The New York Times, May 7, 2024
“The Secret Life of a Coronavirus, The New York Times, February 28, 2021
“Nuclear Tests Marked Life on Earth With a Radioactive Spike,” The Atlantic, March 2020
“The Girl Who Turned to Bone,” The Atlantic, July 2013
updated August 2024
