Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning science journalist, author and speaker based in the Washington D.C. area on topics including parenting, children, education, race, gender, disability, mental health, technology, work, and entrepreneurship. Katherine is founder of the Institute for Independent Journalists, whose mission is the financial and emotional sustainability of freelancers of color. She’s a co-founder of the Parenting Journalists Society and a 2021-22 O’Brien Public Service Journalism fellow and 2020-21 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow, reporting on the science of racial bias in pK-12 education. Her award-winning book, The Good News About Bad Behavior (PublicAffairs, April 2018), explains why modern kids are so undisciplined and tells the stories of innovators who are rebuilding lost self-regulation, resolving family conflict and changing the trajectory of young lives. Based on the most-read article ever published by Mother Jones, the book documents a new model of discipline for a generation of children who are out of control. Katherine is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program in Kensington, Md., and a co-founder of the Parenting in Place masterclass series.
Katherine’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Experience Life, Fortune, Medium, The New York Times, Parents, Slate, USA Today, The Washington Post and Working Mother. She’s appeared on CNN, NPR, Bloomberg television and radio, and HuffPost Live, as well as many TV and radio programs nationally and internationally.
In two decades as a journalist, Katherine’s work has won recognition from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Chicago Headline Club. She’s received fellowships from the Education Writers Association, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good, the National Press Foundation, the Poynter Institute’s Minority Writers Workshop and the University of Maryland’s Casey Journalism Center. Residencies include Moulin à Nef, Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She’s a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Asian American Journalists Association, Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Education Writers Association and Society of Professional Journalists.
Katherine contributed essays to Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox (She Writes Press, November 2015) and PunditMom's Mothers of Intention: How Women & Social Media Are Revolutionizing Politics in America (Bright Sky Press, June 2011) both edited by Joanne C. Bamberger.
In 2008, Katherine created a website about working moms for About.com, which she ran until 2014, attracting millions of readers to the site, its blog and weekly newsletter. Before that, she worked as a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service writing about money, work and family, and as a national reporter for Bloomberg News covering everything from labor, agriculture, finance, media and technology policy to Congress and the White House.
A biracial (Asian American and White), Katherine graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in physics. She and her partner Brian are the proud parents of three children.
