Karen A. Frenkel

Freelance Science and Technology Writer/​Reporter/​Blogger
I am an award-winning science/​technology journalist, editor, and author. I also have made two documentaries about the impact of technology on society for public television––one on women and computing, the other about elearning. I write for many kinds of readers: lay, professional, business, kids, and pretty much anyone interested in high-technology and science. I also have a very strong interest in science, technology, and culture.

I began my career covering robotics and computer science and still report on both. What I love about these fields is that they are interdisciplinary. I freelance for Science Magazine, reporting for the News of the Week and News and Analysis sections, as well as for Science NOW. I am also a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor, covering new technologies for the Innovators and Entrepreneur sections of Businessweek.com and Bloomberg.com. I also cover technology and innovations for FastCompany.com. Stories also have recently appeared in U.S. News and World Report, Scientific American, and Communications of the ACM, the magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Recently, I've expanded into neuroscience and am interested in the influences of research on the mind and brain on computer science and artificial intelligence, and vice versa. My newest blog is for The Foundation for Psychocultural Research, whose mission is to advance and support interdisciplinary research and training in neuroscience, psychiatry, and anthropology.

I also blogged and about science, technology and the arts for ScienceFriday.com, the site for the NPR show. Previously, I covered the same beat for TalkingScience.org, a sister site founded as a forum for discussing issues regarding science media.

Scripts, Columns, and Earlier Online and Magazine Articles
I've also written scripts for "The Loh Down on Science," a radio show hosted by Sandra Tsing Loh for Southern California Public Radio station 89.3 KPCC FM, broadcast out of California Institute of Technology. It was great to participate in injecting a little humor into science.

My first online writing experience was as the technology and culture columnist for CyberTimes, The New York Times on the Web. I continued in print, though, and my articles appeared in Business Week, Discover, Forbes, Medical World News, Millimeter, Personal Computing, Publish, Technology Review, and VAR Business. My documentary, Minerva’s Machine: Women and Computing (see below) evolved from my November 1990 article on women in computing in Communications of the ACM. As Senior Writer for CACM, the flagship magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery, I covered artificial intelligence, interactive multimedia, computer aided design, computer security, computers and medicine, databases and the human genome project, high-definition television, parallel processing, and supercomputers. I still bear a fascination for the power of those machines.

Honors and Awards
• Travel Fellow, National Association for Science Writers 2010 Conference
• Guest Speaker: The New York Academy of Science, based on “The Human Genome Project and Informatics” (November 1991, CACM).
• Judge, Deadline Club Awards, 2008
• Judge, New York Press Club Awards, 2011

Net.LEARNING:
• 1998 First Prize National Education Reporting, Television Documentary and Feature

Minerva's Machine: Women and Computing:
• Best Documentary in a Small Market, 1997 EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award), given by National Women’s Political Caucus and Radcliffe College
• Best Documentary, Brooklyn Arts Council’s 30th Annual International Film and Video Festival
• Best Television Series, Runner Up, Eleventh Annual Computer Press Award

Education
M.S. in Science Communication from the Journalism Department of Boston University’s School of Communication.
B.A. in philosophy of science and psychology from Hampshire College.

Professional Affiliations
• Past Board Member, Director of Programming, New York Women in Film and Television, Co-Chair, Documentary Subcommittee
• National Association of Science Writers
• Science Writers in New York
• The Authors Guild
• Society of Professional Journalists
• The Deadline Club (SPJ NY Chapter)
• New York Press Club