Katie Hafner | |
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| Born | (1957-12-05)December 5, 1957 (age 67) Rochester, New York, U.S. |
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| Children | 1 |
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Katie Hafner (born December 5, 1957)[1] is an Americanjournalist and author. She is a former staff member ofThe New York Times, and has written articles and books on subjects including technology and history. She co-produces and hosts thepodcast seriesLost Women of Science. Her first novel,The Boys, was published in 2022.
Hafner was born inRochester, New York,[1] and raised inAmherst, Massachusetts.[2] She earned a bachelor's degree in German literature from theUniversity of California at San Diego in 1979 and a master's degree from theColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1981.[1]
Beginning in 1983, Hafner worked as a reporter atComputerworld and then atThe San Diego Union. She became a staff editor atBusiness Week in 1986, leaving in 1989. From 1990 to 1994, she worked freelance, writing articles and books, before becoming technology correspondent atNewsweek. In February 1998 she became a writer for the weeklyCircuits section ofThe New York Times,[1] where she remained on staff for a decade. She has also written forEsquire,Wired,The Golfer’s Journal,The New Republic, andThe New York Times Magazine.
Hafner's first book wasCyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (1991), an exploration of youth computer-hacking in three parts, co-written withJohn Markoff.[3] In 1996, with her then husband, Matthew Lyon, she publishedWhere Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. This was one of the earliest in-depth and comprehensive histories of theARPANET and how it led to theInternet. It explored the "human dimension" of the development of the ARPANET covering the "theorists, computer programmers, electronic engineers, and computer gurus who had the foresight and determination to pursue their ideas and affect the future of technology and society".[4][5][6] Her 2001 book on the online communityThe WELL, an expansion of a 1997 article forWired,[7] was praised there for "flashes of genuine insight".[8] Her sixth book,Mother Daughter Me (2013), a memoir about trying to live with her mother and her teenage daughter in a house in San Francisco,[9] was named one of "Ten Titles to Pick Up Now" in the August 2013 issue ofO Magazine and was on other lists of recommendations includingParade magazine's 2013 "Summer Reading List".[10]
Her first novel,The Boys, was published in July 2022,[11] the first novel to be published by the relaunchedSpiegel & Grau.[12]
Hafner's 2006New York Times article "Growing Wikipedia Refines its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy"[13] is included in the second edition ofThe McGraw-Hill Guide Writing for College, Writing for Life, an English composition textbook.[14]
She is on the advisory board of theInternet Hall of Fame.[15] She is interviewed in theJohn Korty documentaryMiracle in a Box, about the rebuilding of a Steinway piano.[citation needed]
Hafner is co-executive producer and host of the podcast seriesLost Women of Science.[16] The first season tells the story of Dr.Dorothy Andersen, the first person to identify and describecystic fibrosis.[17] The second season is the story ofKlára Dán von Neumann, one of the first women to work as a computer programmer.[18] The third season is aboutYvonne Young Clark, the first woman to earn a degree in mechanical engineering fromHoward University and the first Black member of theSociety of Women Engineers.[19]
Hafner's first husband wasJohn Markoff. They divorced and she married Matthew Lyon, a university administrator, in 1992; they had a daughter. He died in February 2002.[2] In 2012 she remarried toRobert M. Wachter, who is chairman of the Department of Medicine at theUniversity of California, San Francisco.[20] In June 2022, he announced that she probably hadlong COVID.[21] In March 2023 she participated in an hour-longvodcast withRoy Wood Jr. on theMatilda effect.
