Jennifer Kahn

“It can be frightening to act, but sometimes, not acting is worse.”

Jennifer Kahn is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. Seeking out complex stories with the goal of illuminating their nuances, she has also written features and cover stories for publications such as The New Yorker, National Geographic, and WIRED. She has reported on the gene-editing capabilities of CRISPR, the roots of psychopathic behavior in children, and the rational self-help movement in Silicon Valley.

She currently teaches in the magazine program at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism and was previously a visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and visiting lecturer at Stanford University.

Kahn’s work has been featured in the Best American Science Writing anthology series four times, as well as in the anthology Best American Sports Writing.

Her TED Talk on CRISPR and gene drives, named one of the top TED Talks of 2016 by conference organizers, has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.

Kahn received her B.A. in astrophysics from Princeton University and her M.J. in journalism from UC Berkeley.