Rosalind Reid

Board of Director

Rosalind Reid retired in 2024 after 11 years as executive director for the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, the culmination of a love affair with science writing that began when she walked into the North Carolina State University news bureau in 1984, discovered physics, and gave up political reporting. Six years later she joined the staff of American Scientist magazine, serving as editor-in-chief from 1992 to 2008 and taking a leave to become the first journalist in residence at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.

Over her years as a magazine editor, Ros also traveled widely to present workshops on the visual communication of science. That work led to a fellowship at Harvard, where she stayed on to launch an institute devoted to computational science while serving on the board of CASW. She is an associate of Harvard’s Institute of Quantitative Social Sciences and managing editor of the Journal of Technology Science.

Under her leadership, CASW created the CASW Showcase and CASW Connector websites, co-launched the National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowships, co-organized the World Conference of Science Journalists, and launched the Sharon Begley Science Reporting Award.

In addition to magazine and newspaper awards, Ros’s recognitions include honorary memberships in Sigma Xi and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A member of the National Association of Science Writers since 1986, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and a master’s from Duke and lives in Chapel Hill, N.C.