For more than three decades, whether in print, broadcast media, or online, K. Lee Lerner's writing and personal column, 'Taking Bearings,' have ranged across the human intellectual enterprise. His award-winning writing ranges from knowledgeable articles on the history of science to insights into modern advances in biotechnology; from the scientific analysis of engineering failures to evidence-based reporting on public health issues; from coverage of attempt to preserve historic cultural sites to on location coverage of the human tragedy inherent in the displacement vulnerable populations by war, civil unrest, and natural disasters.
A love of the history of science along with broader intrigue about the interrelationships of history, art, and culture has drawn Lerner to on-location explorations of UNESCO Archaeological Heritage Sites around the world along with efforts to preserve cultural treasures in XIan, along the Great Wall of China, in China's Forbidden City, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cairo, Giza, Sakarra, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, on expeditions looking for lost WWII planes in the Sahara, in Istanbul, Corinth, Mycenae, Epidauros, Nafplion on the Greek Peloponnesian peninsula, at Delphi, Athens, Siracusa and other threatened sites in Sicily, Florence, Venice, Barcelona, Arles, Vaison-la-Romaine, Glanum, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, in Cobquecura along on the Chilean coast, at Chichen Itza, and at multiple sites in England, Scotland, Ireland, Central America, and across the American West.
Lerner's writing and photos both explore and document ongoing radiation containment efforts in Ukraine to contain the Soviet-era Chernobyl nuclear accident, and in Displaced by Disaster, he becomes one of the first foreign journalists to photograph radiation-contaminated areas inside the Fukushima Nuclear Exclusion Zone. In Displaced by Disaster he also covered the impacts of earthquake and tsunami recovery efforts in Japan, India, China, Haiti, and Chile.
Lerner's commitment to evidence-based public health writing has taken him from wet markets in China to disease outbreaks in Cambodia; from explorations of the public health threats posed by cultural practices in India and Egypt to generational poverty issues plaguing the Kiberia and Mathare slums of Nairobi, Lerner's writing ranged from explanations of the economic impacts of neglected tropical diseases to coverage of emerging disease outbreaks.
Lerner's environmental coverage includes explorations of climate-change impacts in India, and both live and follow-up coverage of major storms, including Hurricane Ivan (2004) and Hurricane Katrina (2005), along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Following his on-scene work covering the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Lerner was chosen to co-edit an updated edition of the RUSA-award winning book Environmental Science.
Lerner's other K. Lee Lerner's portfolio covering science and global issues has garnered respected writing, book and media awards, including books on climate change, infectious diseases, and biotechnology named as Outstanding Academic Titles.