Stories by Jen Schwartz

Jen Schwartz is a senior features editor at Scientific American since 2017. She produces stories and special projects about how society is adapting--or not--to a rapidly changing world, particularly in the contexts of climate change, health, and misinformation. Jen has led several editorial projects at Scientific American, including a special issue, "How Covid Changed The World" (March 2022); the "Confronting Misinformation" special report (November 2020); and "The Future of Money" special report (January 2018), for which she was interviewed in over a dozen media outlets including CNBC, CBS and WNYC. She's co-led projects including the "Truth, Lies, and Uncertainty" special issue (2019) and "Inconceivable" (2018) about research gaps in female reproductive health. Jen also writes and edits essays and book reviews for Scientific American. For 15 years, Jen has reported on sea-level rise and the vexing choices of coastal communities. In 2016, she flew with NASA's Operation Icebridge over Antarctica to report on how polar observations of ice melt lead to ever-improving models for sea-level rise; her resulting feature story, about how a community in NJ is retreating from worsening floods, won the 2019 "Science in Society Award" from the National Association of Science Writers. It has been widely cited in policy and academia, and she has discussed her work on radical climate adaptation at places including the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Summit, Telluride Mountainfilm festival, PBS's Story in The Public Square, The Denver Museum of Natural History, and Princeton University's Council on Science and Technology. Jen has moderated panel discussions for a range of audiences, from corporate (3M's State of The World's Science), to global development (UN General Assembly), to government (Earth From Space Institute) to the arts (Tribeca Film Festival). Jen previously worked at Popular Science, GQ, New York Magazine, Outside, and The Boston Globe. She has an B.S. in journalism from the College of Communication at Boston University.