Rachel Kremen

Highland Park, NJ 08904 USA
Contact

Professional Experience

Rachel Kremen has more than 15 years of experience as a writer and editor, with a focus on science, technology and the environment. She currently works as a freelance writer for several science publications, including Scientific American and MIT's Technology Review. Before relocating to New Jersey, Kremen was the online managing editor for MIT's Technology Review magazine. She worked closely with freelance and staff writers, assigning stories about emerging technologies, suggesting sources and editing copy. In 2005, Kremen was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship. The nine-month MIT program was a great way to learn about the latest scientific research and make new sources in a wide variety of fields. Kremen won the Fellowship based largely on her work as a technology reporter for the Toronto Star: Canada's largest-circulation daily newspaper. Her stories for the Star covered many topics, including computer hardware and quantum physics.

Expertise

Editor
4 Years
Producer (new media)
3 Years
Reporter
12 Years

Specialty

Environment & Nature
2 Years
Science
8 Years
Technology
9 Years

Industries


Broadcasting - News - TV (Local)
1 Year
Newspaper - National
5 Years
Online/new media
6 Years

Total Media Industry Experience

13 Years

Media Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

CP24 Television (10+), Scientific American (3-5), Toronto One Television (3-5)

Other Work History

Full Time Employment History Technology Review - Managing Editor, 2 years Toronto Star Newspapers - Technology Reporter, 5 years MSNBC - Interactive Producer, 2 years

Technical Skills

Fireworks, Photoshop

Foreign Language Skills

French

Computer Skills

HTML (handcoded or in Dreamweaver), PHP, VBScript, JavaScript, C++ All operating systems, all standard applications

Equipment

- Audio Recording Studio, 24-track Pro Tools - Digital Camera

Work Permits & Visas

I can legally work in Canada or the United States.

Awards

2005 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT

Showcase

General

The digital home
(Toronto Star 2/3/2003)
An humorous look at Microsoft's home of the future. From the article: The house of the future has no bathroom. And I really have to go.
Phone-made movie has image problem
(Toronto Star 6/10/2004)
A review of one of the first cellphones capable of recording video.
"Emergent" Images to Outwit Spambots
(Technology Review 1/6/2010)
Researchers have developed an automated system for creating still and video images that can be identified by humans but not by computers. Such technology could be useful for Captcha systems, which were designed to keep "spambots"--or automated junk e-mail programs--from signing up for free online accounts.
Microsoft's Many Multitouch Mice
(Technology Review 10/27/2009)
Apple's Magic Mouse might be slick, but Microsoft is also working on five new designs.
Touchless 3-D Fingerprinting
(Technology Review 9/30/2009)
A new non-contact, 3-D fingerprinting system could make spotting the bad guys faster and easier, whether it's at the border or the police precinct. By projecting patterns of light onto a finger and analyzing the image, researchers from the University of Kentucky are able to create a more accurate print than those made with ink or sensor plates. The researchers say the system is more efficient than traditional fingerprinting and significantly reduces the number of incorrect matches.
Odds Favor Drunk Trauma Victims
(Scientific American 10/1/2009)
A study in the journal American Surgeon finds that trauma victims who were inebriated at the time of their injury have higher survival rates than their sober counterparts.
Light-Switched Drug Delivery
(Technology Review 10/7/2009)
Scientists around the world are working on different ways to get drugs into specific cells without negatively impacting the rest of the body. Now researchers in England and Germany have created gold-studded polymer microcapsules that release compounds into cells by rupturing when exposed to ultraviolet light. The capsules could be useful for researchers studying the effects of drugs on cells, and eventually they could serve as a clinical tool for administering medication.
A little beer widget powers 'the surge'
(Toronto Star 7/22/2002)
In this article I investigate the origins of the beer widget, commonly found in cans of stout. The article was part of a regular column that explored the history of invention.
Breaking the pasta code
(Toronto Star 8/21/2005)
A straight news story about physics research on spaghetti.
Nanotroubles
(Toronto Star 10/11/2004)
A feature story about health and safety concerns posed by certain nanoparticles. The article also outlines the Canadian government's lax attitude toward the use of nanoparticles in products.
Ensuring Chip Stability
(Technology Review 10/8/2008)
Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a new approach to handling bugs on computer chips. The system, known as the semantic guardian, only allows a chip to work in ways that have been tested by the manufacturer. All other scenarios are automatically disabled by the guardian, to help ensure that the computer runs smoothly.
Teaching Robots New Tricks
(Technology Review 9/29/2008)
Programming instructions for robots can be a time-consuming, labor-intensive task. Many roboticists believe that training robots by demonstrating new skills could speed up the process and enable the machines to perform more difficult tasks. Now researchers have created such a system for robotic helicopters. With their approach, the team can train a robotic helicopter to perform a complicated aerial maneuver in less than 30 minutes simply by analyzing video footage of the trick. The work could one day be applied to a wide variety of robots on land and sea, as well as in the air.
Toxic exportation
(Toronto Star 1/3/2005)
A feature story investigating why the Canadian government dumps its own electronic waste on poorer nations.
Getting the lead out
(Toronto Star 8/30/2004)
This feature story looked at the technological and social implications of the EU's decision to eliminate lead in electronics.
Transforming clothes
(Technology Review 10/20/2006)
This article looks at the technology the latest fashions by clothing designer Hussein Chalayan.
Still stuck with the dishes
(Toronto Star 8/2/2003)
From the article: Why don't we all have robots to do the housework? Cleaning toilets takes more smarts than you think.
Elderly receive a helping hand from new robots
(MSNBC 4/27/2000)
From the article: When we think of the elderly, we don’t generally associate them with robots. But with an aging demographic in both the U.S. and Japan and the rising costs of care, the need for robotic assisted living will continue to grow. Eager to fill this need, roboticists from around the world got together to present their ideas for rehabilitation robots this week at the robotics 17th annual IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in San Francisco.