Amy Harmon

Early life and career

Harmon was born in New York City in 1968. She received a B.A. degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan and began her career in journalism as the Opinion page editor of the Michigan Daily, the university's student newspaper. After graduating, Harmon was hired as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and briefly covered the auto industry from the paper's Detroit bureau, before she moved to Los Angeles and started writing mainly about digital technology and science.

In 1997, she joined The New York Times. Three years later she wrote an article about a black internet entrepreneur and his white partner, "A Limited Partnership: The Black Internet Entrepreneur Had the Idea; The White One Became the Venture's Public Face". It was one of ten articles in a series on race relations for which the NYT staff won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Harmon won the prize for Explanatory Reporting alone in 2008 for a series titled "The DNA Age" about the ramifications of new genetic technology. The award formally cited "her striking examination of the dilemmas and ethical issues that accompany DNA testing, using human stories to sharpen her reports." In 2011, Harmon's "Target Cancer" series, about the human testing of a new kind of cancer drug, received the National Academies Communication Award, the journalism award given by the National Academies of Science. Her article "Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World" won the 2012 Casey Medal for excellence in reporting on children and families.

In 2013, she wrote the short e-book, Asperger Love: Searching for Romance When You're Not Wired to Connect, published in 2013 by New York Times/Byliner.