Carl Zimmer

Zimmer also gives frequent lectures and has appeared on many radio shows, including National Public Radio's Radiolab, Fresh Air, and This American Life. He authored Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, a companion piece to the PBS series Evolution. Zimmer describes his journalistic beat as "life" or "what it means to be alive". He is the only science writer to have a species of tapeworm named after him (Acanthobothrium zimmeri). Zimmer's father is Dick Zimmer, a Republican politician from New Jersey, who was a member of U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997.

• Born — 13 July 1966 • Birthplace — New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. • Occupation — * Popular science writer • blogger • Language — English • Education — Yale University (BA) • Subjects — * Evolution • parasites • Children — 2 • Website — carlzimmer.com

Zimmer is the older of two boys born in New Haven, Connecticut to an Ashkenazi Jewish father and a mother of Irish and German descent. His brother, linguist Ben Zimmer, is also a science communicator. Zimmer earned a B.A. in English from Yale University in 1987.

In 1989, Zimmer began his career at Discover magazine, first as a copy editor and fact checker, eventually serving as a senior editor from 1994 to 1998. Zimmer left Discover after ten years to focus on books and other projects. In 2004, he started a blog called "The Loom", in which he wrote about topics related to his books, but later expanded it into what he terms "a place where I could write about things I might not be turning into an article for a magazine, but were really interesting'. The Loom has been hosted by Discover and National Geographic for many years, and has been invited to be part of Scienceblogs. It was transferred to Zimmer's personal website in 2018. Zimmer writes a weekly column called "Matter" in The New York Times. Zimmer and the STAT team have put out "Game of Genomes", a 13-part series that enlisted two dozen scientists, with the goal of exploring Zimmer's own genome. • Illustration — Zimmer in 2018 He has given lectures at universities, medical schools, and museums. In 2009, Zimmer was the keynote speaker at Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS). He also presented at NECSS 2011 and CSICon 2018. Zimmer has twice been a spotlight speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in 2017 and 2018. In 2009 and 2010 he was host of the periodic audio podcast "Meet the Scientist" of the American Society for Microbiology. Zimmer's 2004 article "Whose Life Would You Save?" was included in the 2005 The Best American Science and Nature Writing series. Zimmer has received a number of awards, including the 2007 National Academies Communication Award, a prize for science communication from the United States National Academy of Sciences, for his wide-ranging coverage of biology and evolution in newspapers, magazines, and his blog. In 2016 Yale University appointed Zimmer Adjunct Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, stating that he is "a world-renowned science journalist and teacher, and his ability to make science, particularly biology, accessible to the general public is without peer". Zimmer has taught a science communication course at Yale since 2017 and participates in other molecular biophysics and biochemistry courses.

• 2002: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. • 2005: Poynter Fellowship, Yale University. Invited speaker, Psychology. • 2006: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Public Understanding of Science and Technology • 2010: Poynter Fellowship, Yale. Invited speaker, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry • 2015: Osher Fellowship, California Academy of Sciences • 2017: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Public Understanding of Science and Technology

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• She has her mother's laugh *

The tangled bank: an introduction to evolution / Carl Zimmer; scientific advisors, Joel Kingsolver [and others]. An illustrated guide to 101 incredible microbes / Dr Marilyn Roossinck; foreword by Carl Zimmer. She has her mother's laugh: the powers, perversions, and potential of heredity / Carl Zimmer. Parasite rex: inside the bizarre world of nature's most dangerous creatures / Carl Zimmer. Soul made flesh: the discovery of the brain, and how it changed the world / Carl Zimmer. Science ink: tattoos of the science obsessed / Carl Zimmer; foreword by Mary Roach. E-coli and the new science of life / by Carl Zimmer. A planet of viruses / Carl Zimmer. Recorded as writer, journalist and researcher.