Roger Highfield to edit New Scientist

Stephen Brook
guardian.co.uk, Thursday July 10 2008 10.52 BST

The Daily Telegraph science editor, Roger Highfield - the first man to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble - has been appointed editor of New Scientist.

Highfield, who is leaving the Daily Telegraph after more than 20 years, will become the weekly science news magazine's ninth editor and will help with its expansion into America and India.

"I have had two fantastic decades at the Daily Telegraph, where I have managed to do so much more than write news and feature articles," Highfield said.

"From the very first day I was recruited in 1986, I have been fortunate to work with many exceptional people. I am especially grateful to my editor, William Lewis, for the exciting and unprecedented opportunities he has given me to explore what the web has to offer journalism.

"I will have the chance to lead a fantastically talented team to take New Scientist into new markets and to enhance its reputation as the best source of novel ideas and new thinking on the planet."

Prior to the Telegraph, Highfield was news editor of Nuclear Engineering International and clinical reporter for family doctors magazine Pulse.

He has an MA and DPhil in chemistry from the University of Oxford and also worked as a scientist at Unilever and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France, where he became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble.

Highfield has written six books and edited leading geneticist Craig Venter's A Life Decoded.

New Scientist has editions in the UK, US and Australia and has a weekly circulation of more than 174,000. It began publication in 1956.

Its website, newscientist.com, has 2.3 million visitors a month.

Jeremy Webb, the New Scientist editor-in-chief, said: "We are expanding in the US, into new markets in India and elsewhere, and improving our web offering.

"The magazine is right at the centre of all these efforts and we need a strong, creative editor to lead it. I can't wait to start working with Roger."

The Telegraph Media Group editor-in-chief, Will Lewis, said: "Roger has been a fantastic science editor for the Daily Telegraph and I know that he will be a real asset to the New Scientist. I wish him all the very best in this new exciting role."

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