Karen Romano

Karen Romano Young was frequently wet during her early years. Despite not actually having webbed feet, she spent much of her nonschool time up to her knees in the Atlantic, Long Island Sound, or the Mill River in her hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut. Although Karen had little formal science education before high school, she learned on her feet, and has continued to do so through a career that includes scientific research expeditions, writing, and illustrating. 

Karen has dived to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a tiny submarine, crunched through Arctic ice in an icebreaker, and visited labs, museum workshops, and research institutions across the U.S. in order to write and draw about science -- especially ocean science.  She is the author of nearly 30 books for children, has illustrated several of these, and is the creator of Humanimal Doodles, a science comic for kids. Her fiction work includes the award-winning novel The Beetle and Me and the celebrated graphic novel Doodlebug. 

Karen’s recent work includes Humanimal Doodle-style picture books for Harper Big Cat, such as Watching Whales, and Stuck in the Middle (Of Middle School), a sequel to Doodlebug. Right now she’s working on the photo shoot of a new National Geographic