New science writer named at WSJ

Robert Lee Hotz was recently named Science Journal columnist of The Wall Street Journal, according to a release

In this role, Hotz’s responsibilities will include writing the Science Journal column that runs in the Marketplace section every other week, alternating with the Numbers Guy column, which will leave Hotz time to write for other parts of the Journal.

“Lee encompasses such a wide array of experience in the science field,” said Paul E. Steiger, managing editor of The Journal. “His already accomplished career and knowledge from reporting on such a broad range of topics in the science industry will ensure the continued success of the Science Journal column.”

Hotz joins the Journal in its New York bureau from The Los Angeles Times where he was a science writer since 1993, covering a wide range of topics, from spy satellites to neuroscience and genetics to global warming. Earlier in his career, Hotz served in many roles from 1984 to 1993 at the Atlanta Constitution, which included science writer, assistant metro editor and science editor. Before that, he was a science writer and general assignment reporter at the Pittsburgh Press from 1979 until 1984.

Hotz began his journalism career at the News-Virginian in Waynesboro, Va., in 1976, after working on the space shuttle, the Global Positioning System and other computer science research projects at Intermetrics Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

Hotz shared in the LA Times’s Pulitzer-prize winning coverage of the Northridge earthquake in 1995, and was a Pulitzer finalist for his coverage of the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2004 and for genetic-engineering issues in 1986.

Hotz is the president of the National Association of Science Writers and has won the national writing award from the Society of Professional Journalists twice. He is also a three-time recipient of the science journalism award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.