We at Nature are saddened by the death of our colleague Karen Kaplan on 26 November, from a head and neck cancer that was diagnosed two years ago.

Karen, who was based in Washington DC, joined the editorial team of Nature’s Careers section in 2008, from the US title Physics Today. In her role as senior Careers editor, she oversaw the section’s weekly features as well as commissioning regular columns and Q&As from our global audience of early-career researchers. Karen also led coverage of our annual surveys of working scientists, and in 2019 was the launch editor for the Where I Work photo-essay series, introduced to mark Nature’s 150th anniversary.

Karen’s colleagues and her extensive network of freelance writers will remember her as a meticulous and campaigning editor, who championed diversity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine — ensuring that voices from under-represented groups, and the workplace issues that they faced, were covered routinely and frequently in Nature’s Careers section.

A former business reporter, whose career started in 1987 at The Day newspaper, based in Connecticut, Karen loved language, food, fashion, jazz and Blues. Our thoughts are with Karen’s friends and family, notably her sister A.B., at this difficult time.