Science Writer (GLBRC)
At the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI), we envision a world powered by sustainable and reliable energy that is affordable and accessible to everyone. As the home of collaborative energy research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, we connect and empower researchers to help solve one of the world’s greatest challenges: developing sustainable alternatives to meet society’s ever-growing need for power, fuels, and chemicals. One major research program within WEI is the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), a U.S. Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Center whose mission is to create biofuels and bioproducts that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable.
Our job, as the WEI communications team, is to learn about the work being done by WEI scientists, engineers, and staff, and help share those stories with journalists, our funding agencies, and the public. We are searching for a science writer to help us showcase WEI’s research and outreach programs and the people behind them.
As a science writer, you would be joining a creative and collaborative team of communicators and share responsibilities for finding and pitching stories, writing stories, editing, and media relations. You would also research, write, and edit content for internal and external communications projects and work with other team members to help develop marketing materials.
Working with the communications director, you would plan and set goals for our editorial content and determine the newsworthiness of potential stories. You will often work on a wide variety of stories/projects at once. You’ll also be editing the stories of other writers on the team, so a sharp eye for accuracy, punctuation, grammar, and style is helpful.
We are looking for someone who is curious and likes to ask questions and dig into things they don’t understand. Someone who is passionate about learning. Someone who has heard about something scientifically amazing and thought, “I need to tell someone about this!” Someone who is passionate about telling stories driven by people, ideas, and discoveries.
If that describes you and you’re excited about the job and joining our team, we would love to see your application.
Please include a cover letter (one page or less), but don’t use it to describe your job history. Tell us about the unique aspects of your personal and professional experience that make you the right person for this job.