I’m a UK-based writer, journalist, and editor who mostly covers science, engineering, and technology.

I edit LabHomepage, a B2B website covering the laboratory sector – instruments, services, supplies, and relevant science news. I think of it as the successor to Laboratorytalk, which I edited for ten years from its launch in 2001 until it was sold by Centaur Media in 2011. At that time I elected to move on rather than go with the title to its new home.

In parallel with that editorship, I had a role as head of video content for Centaur Media. Here I was responsible for the creative and production aspects of online video across the Pro-Talk stable of business-to-business websites. That innovative group of sites, pioneers of successful B2B web publishing, has now been broken up and effectively disappeared.

I’m also in the market for freelance assignments, and will be happy to discuss your ideas and projects. I’m prepared to tackle technical material as well as more general articles and copy. My weekly Laboratorytalk editorial newsletter for the scientific community had a loyal following of 20,500 readers, due at least partly to the engaging style and topical nature of my leader column.

My work has appeared in a variety of places, on line, on paper, and even on screen. I have written for the Financial Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Private Eye, Ideal Home, Concrete Quarterly, and many other publications. I have edited magazines covering civil engineering, structural engineering, and chemical engineering as well as a newsletter for research scientists and a number of customer publications. I did a spell as locum editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s membership magazine Chemistry World, and have provided editorial consultancy services to clients in the pre-launch and launch phases of new magazine projects.

Recent freelance assignments include a major reassessment of the Apollo space programme for management consultant Jara, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s “before this decade is out” speech, a ghostwritten article for Drives & Controls magazine, and the creation of a few dozen pages of web content for a major supplier of scientific instruments. I’m currently working on a series of articles about the science of sport and the sustainability issues around the 2012 Olympics, and write a regular column called Lab Babble for Laboratory News.

I once made the European Central Bank scrap its designs for the euro banknotes, stood for parliament in the 2010 general election, and am currently learning to play the ukulele. 

You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

The best way to contact me is by email to himself@russswan.com