Getting to Know Science Writer Casey Rentz

The enlightening Scientific American Q&A series “The SA Incubator” continues today with a look at the professional trajectory of LA based freelance journalist Casey Rentz.

Her science writing career began in Chicago, where she launched her own zine and contributed to 2006-08 underground free monthly The Skeleton. Then, thanks to someone handing her a book by K.C. Cole and Rentz cold-introducing herself to the author via email, it was on to USC’s Specialized Journalism program. While on campus earning her master’s, Rentz began laying the freelance groundwork:

“After I joined USC’s master’s program, I started blogging a bit, I wrote for Sandra Tsing Loh’s radio program Loh Down on Science, and I started writing a column for the newsletter at the Page Museum (An archaeological site in the middle of a huge city? Nothing better!) Post-graduation, I landed a job as Associate Communications Director at a non-profit startup called Informed by Nature. It’s a catch-all job: I do some writing for the website, program development, and creative development for the company. We’ll be launching in late 2012.”

Rentz currently freelances for The Huffington Post, The Guardian, smithsonian.com and a number of other outlets. Her flamboyant Tennessee high school math and biochemistry teachers, who respectively sang and penned DNA-driven stage plays, are no doubt very proud. To read the rest of the Q&A, click here.

[Photo courtesy caseyrentz.com]