What do Mount Everest, marine disasters, sports bras, and immigration all have in common? Versatile veteran journalist Kalee Thompson ’96 has covered them all. In her wide-ranging career, Thompson has spanned the staff and freelance sides of the business, written two books, and worked as a writer and editor for such prestigious publications as Wirecutter (the New York Times’ product review site) and Popular Science.
“It’s satisfying how many different careers I’ve been able to have and how many different topics I’ve covered,” she says. “I never would have been able to predict that as a college student.”
Thompson already knew she wanted to be a journalist when she arrived at Colgate. She joined the Colgate Maroon-News in her first semester and spent countless hours in the newsroom throughout her four years on campus. “I found it really satisfying that you’re starting over each week,” she says. “You don’t know what the story is going to be.” She discovered she had a talent for editing. “I like helping other people improve their writing and express their ideas,” she adds.
During her six years as a staff editor at National Geographic Adventure, Thompson became well versed in the world and ethics of mountain climbing. She then transitioned to Popular Science, where over the next decade as both a staff and freelance editor and writer, she immersed herself in natural disasters, clean energy developments, and other emerging technologies.
In her freelance work, she wrote a cover story for Popular Mechanics that served as the foundation for her gripping first book, Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History (William Morrow, 2010). She also wrote emergency preparedness stories for Popular Mechanics, as well as a series of fertility-related stories for the Hollywood Reporter and business stories for Inc.
In 2017, Thompson’s expertise in emergency preparedness landed her a senior editor role at Wirecutter. She now heads up the team responsible for health, fitness, sleep, and baby/kid coverage. Her team has tested kids scooters, assessed a salon’s worth of hairdryers, and put sports bras through their paces. “The most satisfying guides are the ones where we’re taking a product seriously that you won’t see covered elsewhere in a rigorous way,” she says.
She’s currently working on a puberty guide, with recommendations for products ranging from first bras to deodorants to puberty books. “We’re trying to help people by saving them the time and doing the research for them,” she says.
For her most recent book, Thompson shifted from product recommendations to a hot-button political and social issue: immigration. Her research for a 2013 profile of an undocumented college athlete for Runner’s World laid the groundwork for her new book, The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear (University of Chicago Press, 2022), cowritten with Tara Watson, a labor and health economist at Williams College.
“It looks at the issue of illegal immigration in the United States through an economic lens,” Thompson says. “But what’s unique about it is that it mixes a review of relevant economic literature with personal stories of immigrant families, to have more of an emotional impact and help readers understand the consequences of policy on regular families.”
Thompson encourages aspiring writers to be open to the opportunities that come their way. “There are so many different directions you can go,” she says. “You don’t have to have everything figured out. Just be open to different ideas and trying new things.”