Home / Kara J. Manke

I am a science writer at the University of California, Berkeley, where I write about engineering, the environment, and public health for Berkeley News. I got my start in science writing as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow working at the NPR science desk, and went on to work as a science communicator for Brookhaven National Lab and Duke University. I hold a Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT.

I love storytelling in all forms, and am as likely to be found with my nose in a novel as I am scrolling the latest science news.

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How wildfire restored a Yosemite watershed

Half a century of allowing lightning fires to burn in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin has recreated a lost forest ecosystem that is far more resilient to the impacts of drought, wildfire and climate change

UC Berkeley launches pop-up lab to monitor Bay Area sewage for COVID-19

A team of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, has spent months refining and optimizing a rapid and low-cost new technique to test wastewater for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This month, the team has launched a new high-throughput pop-up lab that, in conjunction with UC Berkeley and wastewater utilities and public health agencies from throughout the Bay Area, will monitor the region’s wastewater for the virus.

Stark racial bias revealed in police killings of older, mentally ill, unarmed Black men

While young men still bear the brunt of police killings, a new study has found that police are five times more likely to shoot and kill unarmed Black men over age 54 than unarmed white men the same age. Police are also more likely to shoot and kill unarmed Black men who exhibit signs of mental illness, compared to white men with similar behaviors.