New book by alum/lecturer Kara Platoni explores intersection of technology and sensory perception

UC Berkeley Journalism lecturer and alumna Kara Platoni (’99) has published her first book, titled, We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, & Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time. The book, an anthology of stories exploring the intersection of human sensory perception and technology hits the shelves Dec. 8.

The book focuses on how science is altering human perception, or the ways in which our brains construct our experiences. “Each chapter is a story about a person, whether it’s a neuroscientist or a biohacker or a surgeon, or some kind of engineer, who is doing some kind of work that is on the cutting edge of the science of sensory perception,” says Platoni.

Her months of reporting–in a pair of tattered Converse sneakers, fueled by coffee and what she calls “a wicked Doritos habit”–took her on extensive travel in the United States and abroad to conduct more than 100 interviews (recorded on cassette tape, ironically) with perfumers, soldiers, cyborgs, surgeons, clockmakers and others. Along the way she met one man implanting magnets in his hand to get electromagnetic perception, and another who developed a camera he can wear in his eye socket after he lost his eye in a shooting accident as a child. She also visited a hospital operating room to witness a teleoperation, where the doctor performed surgery on a patient remotely using a robot. “The surgeon sits at a console and she drives this robot that is actually doing the surgery inside the patient’s body,” she says.

Platoni’s project began three years ago when she conceived the idea, and she took a full year off from teaching at the J-School to report and write before completing a draft in fall 2014. Editing and rewrites took another year.

As a student at the School, Platoni had been drawn to political reporting, and learned from such journalists as the late Susan Rasky, George Lewinski and Doug Foster. She credits the School with thorough career preparation. “It trained me to be a reporter,” she says. “It trained me to be publishable, it trained me to dig, and it trained me to ask good questions.”

After graduating in 1999, Platoni joined the East Bay Express as a staff writer where she covered science and technology, medicine, crime, and politics.

She later spent two years as senior editor for the environmental magazine Terrain before returning to North Gate, where she teaches reporting and narrative writing and heads the team of instructors who teach the J-200 foundational course for first-years.

Although she took a year to report away from North Gate, the School community served her well on her travels. “I would post things on Facebook saying, ‘Does anyone know anybody in the following cities who will let me crash on their couch?’ and every time J-School people put me up,” she says.

“Sometimes it wasn’t even J-School people, it was their parents or their friends or people they went to college with. But I went to eight U.S. states and four countries largely powered by the J-School community.”

Platoni will spend the next several months on a promotional tour where she’ll give
talks and sign books.

“I know Kara Platoni as an outstanding and highly regarded teacher of young reporters, and it’s gratifying to learn she’s also a terrific author,” says Dean Ed Wasserman. “Science writing is an area where our faculty excels, with standouts like Michael Pollan, Jenn Kahn and Mark Schapiro, and it’s wonderful to see Kara join their ranks.”

By Alex Kekauoha (’17)