Janet Raloff

Janet Raloff

Editor, Digital, Science News Explores

Editor Janet Raloff has been a part of the Science News Media Group since 1977. While a staff writer at Science News, she covered the environment, toxicology, energy, science policy, agriculture and nutrition. She was among the first to give national visibility to such issues as electromagnetic pulse weaponry and hormone-mimicking pollutants, and was the first anywhere to report on the widespread tainting of streams and groundwater sources with pharmaceuticals. A founding board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, her writing has won awards from groups including the National Association of Science Writers. In July 2007, while still writing for Science News, Janet took over Science News Explores (then known as Science News for Kids) as a part-time responsibility. Over the next six years, she expanded the magazine's depth, breadth and publication cycle. Since 2013, she also oversaw an expansion of its staffing from three part-timers to a full-time staff of four and a freelance staff of some 35 other writers and editors. Before joining Science News, Janet was managing editor of Energy Research Reports (outside Boston), a staff writer at Chemistry (an American Chemical Society magazine) and a writer/editor for Chicago's Adler Planetarium. Initially an astronomy major, she earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (with an elective major in physics).

All Stories by Janet Raloff

  1. Ecosystems

    Thwarting Tree Poachers

    A new federal rule makes it harder to destroy protected forests.

  2. Earth

    Improved Cars: Chu on It

    Hey Detroit: Lighten up, the incoming Energy Secretary recommends.

  3. Tech

    Holiday Gifts: Blog Sites

    Sample other blogs and let us know of notables that we missed that are also worth sharing.

  4. Chemistry

    Of Presidents and Nobels

    It appears Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will soon have produced two Nobel laureates to offer White House counsel and directives on science policy.

  5. Tech

    Obama selects Steven Chu as Energy Secretary

    Featured blog: Chu is an energy researcher who also shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics.

  6. Chemistry

    ENV Tidbits: Corals, nano concerns, and more

    News nuggets on climate-imperiled corals, nanotech worries, and soft drinks bearing pesticides.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Pollutants in the womb can trigger adult cancers

    Mouse study shows fetal exposure to carcinogens may pose long-term risks.

  8. Humans

    Obama Could Learn from ‘Junk Bros.’

    Think what TV brothers who recycle trash could do with the outmoded structure of federal agencies.

  9. Earth

    Biological Cadre Turns Political

    Conservation scientists lobby the presidential-transition team to select an Interior Secretary who respects and defends science.

  10. Humans

    Help NAS and Yourself

    A science-backgrounder series for the public is coming, and you can help choose the topics.

  11. Humans

    Science Reporting Fallout

    Newspaper cutbacks are being linked to diminished science reporting.

  12. Humans

    CNN downsizes science team

    The move and timing for greatly restructuring science-and-environment coverage at the nation's all-news cable giant are perplexing.