Rebecca Ortenberg

After joining the editorial team as its first managing editor, I developed editorial workflows and a standardized publication process from scratch. I continue to track editorial deadlines and processes, manage email communications with contributors, donors, and readers, and advise on all publication decision making. I also write regularly for the magazine and co-host the monthly podcast.

In an effort to tell more complete stories about women scientists, I launched an online crowdsourcing effort to identify five anonymous women in a photograph from the Science History Institute archives. The story was picked up by Massive Science, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and BBC Future. As of May 2020, one of the women has been identified.

I served as a communications consultant for the William Trent House in Trenton, New Jersey, working with them to choose communications tools (including a new website CMS, graphic design software, and email marketing platform) that better suited their budget and needs, developed re-useable communications materials and templates, and relaunched their website.

I launched this social media initiative at the Science History Institute, which invites research fellows to “take over” the Institute Twitter account. I continue to recruit and schedule fellows, write communications copy, and track analytics. I also lead an annual training to introduce new fellows to Twitter and prepare them to participate. 

I led a team of five editors, researchers, and writers as executive producer of the Science History Institute's first audio tour. Along with supervising the team, I managed story development, edited scripts and audio, and orchestrated testing and evaluation.

I curated the online exhibit for this community-based oral history project about the history of Ambler, Pennsylvania, its legacy of asbestos manufacturing, and contemporary Superfund project. Using an interactive Google map, the online exhibit brings together video and audio clips from oral histories with historic documents and contemporary photographs to tell a non-linear, multi-perspective story of a unique town.