Science & Health Journalist | Educator
Kathleen McAuliffe
BIO
Kathleen McAuliffe is the author most recently of the book This Is Your Brain On Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society (Houghton Mifflin), a bestseller in parasitology and microbiology that has been translated into six languages. Over the decades, she has written articles—many featured on covers—for over a dozen national magazines, including Discover, The New York Times (both the Sunday Magazine and newspaper), The Atlantic, US News & World Report, Smithsonian, and the Los Angeles Times. Earlier in her career, she was a health columnist for More Magazine, and a senior science editor at US News & World Report and Omni Magazine.
In addition to writing, McAuliffe is an adjunct professor at the University of Miami where she is currently teaching a course on the human microbiome.
McAuliffe was educated at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, obtaining an M.A. in natural science after graduating with first-class honors (highest distinction). Her final year thesis on electroencephalography (EEG) recordings of the human brain was presented at the Eastern Psychology Association Conference in 1977.
McAuliffe resides in Miami, Florida with her husband, a physicist at the University of Miami.
DISTINCTIONS
In 2017, McAuliffe delivered the eighth annual Da Vinci Lecture at Marshall University about her book This Is Your Brain On Parasites and was an invited speaker at The Miami International Book Fair. Amazon editors chose This Is Your Brain On Parasites as a best book of June 2016.
McAuliffe's Atlantic article, How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy, was the most widely read in the magazine’s history when it debuted in 2012, and New York Times columnist David Brooks singled it out that year for a Sidney Award for outstanding journalism.
Her article, Are We Evolving?, was featured in The Best American Science Writing of 2010 (edited by Jerome Groopman).
In 2009, she was awarded an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship to study and report on human evolution.
In 2000, McAuliffe received an award from the National Coalition of Women With Heart Disease in recognition of excellence in journalism.
In 1996, she was also awarded a science writing fellowship from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
In 1988, she was honored with the Institute of Food Technology award for outstanding writing on food science and nutrition.
