Silke Schmidt is a freelance science writer with degrees in biostatistics and journalism. She enjoys covering the environment, engineering and medicine. Silke has been writing for Science News for Students since 2018. She has covered the benefits of fever, clothing that keeps mosquitoes from biting, electric surgery and new uses of ultrasound. Before she became a science writer, she was a human genetics researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Originally from Germany, she now lives in Madison, Wis., where she enjoys biking, kayaking and spending time with her husband and two children.