Shi En Kim

East Coast United States, Washington, D.C., United States

Freelance science writer • ✍️ @Natgeo @sciam @popsci @SmithsonianMag @cenmag etc. • Co-founder @sequencermag • Orophile ⛰️ • I go by my last name, Kim • She/her

Featured in: Favicon

acs.org

smithsonianmag.com Favicon

physicsworld.com Favicon

sciencenewsforstudents.org Favicon

massivesci.com Favicon

sequencermag.com Favicon

cen.acs.org

Articles

Curious about scicomm? This mentorship program is for you!

1 month ago | sequencermag.com | Shi En Kim

We are excited to announce Sequencer's Science Storyteller Mentorship Program. Are you a scientist or student interested in writing for a public audience? Write about your research or important advances in your field with us and receive scicomm mentorship. Sequencer's Max, Kim, Maddie, and Dan are experienced journalists and former scientists with advanced degrees in science and engineering.
The horses and mules that moved mountains and hearts

1 month ago | sequencermag.com | Shi En Kim

by Shi En Kim, High Country NewsApril 3, 2025Nick is obsessed with Emmy. Once, in Montana’s Flathead National Forest, when Emmy left without him, Nick ran 15 miles upriver to find her. Nick hates to be separated from Emmy, but she “doesn’t care if he lives or dies,” said Victoria Winch, a former forestry technician in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
From Worlds That Look Like Cotton Candy to Others Covered in Volcanoes, These Are the Strangest and Most Captivating Exoplanets

2 months ago | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

Are we alone in the universe? While no one can say for sure, space scientists know where to start looking—exoplanets. An exoplanet is a planet beyond the cradle of Earth’s eight-membered solar system. Hundreds of billions of these extraterrestrial kingdoms swarm our galaxy, and hundreds of sextillions of others exist beyond that. While scientists know innumerous foreign worlds are out there, researchers have only pinpointed the existence of a tiny fraction.
The Six Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Uranus

Mar 5, 2025 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

Let’s get this out of the way—any scientist studying Uranus will tell you that they’re tired of the planet being the butt of your jokes. “I’ve heard them all. I know them all,” says Heidi Hammel, a planetary astronomer at the nonprofit Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. In her experience, the gluteal reference in Uranus’ name makes it hard for her and others to have their work taken seriously outside the scientific community.
A Quarry Worker Felt Strange Bumps While Digging. They Turned Out to Be the Largest Dinosaur Trackway in the U.K.

Jan 7, 2025 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

About 166 million years ago, dinosaurs ambled across a shallow lagoon in modern-day Britain. Some of the Jurassic giants took their sweet time, moving in fits and starts; others might have skulked more urgently. All made the mud squelch beneath their toes as they tromped here. At the time, such an occurrence was just a mundane event of dinosaurs on the march. But the terrain preserved these fleeting crossings—though the dinosaurs are long gone, the impressions they left behind remain.
You Can Now See Apex, the World's Most Expensive Dinosaur Fossil, on Display at a New York City Museum

Dec 9, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

The largest and most complete Stegosaurus specimen sold for a record-setting price in July, and it is currently on loan to the American Museum of Natural History for four years Visitors to the American Museum of Natural History in New York can now feast their eyes on a rare new display: the fossil of a 150-million-year-old, fully grown Stegosaurus named Apex. The exhibit opened Sunday, December 8, and will remain on view for four years.
The Six Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made About Neptune

Nov 5, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

When it came to discovering Neptune, scientists didn’t need to see to believe. The eighth planet in our solar system was detected, not with telescopes, but through math. , scientists had observed irregularities in Uranus’ orbit, as if an invisible counterweight were tugging on the planet from the far side. From these observations, researchers calculated the position of a hypothetical planet, then pointed their best telescopes there.
The Seven Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made About Pluto

Oct 22, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

Pluto is probably best known for being a demoted planet. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union stripped it of its original classification, after narrowing the definition of a planet to be one that clears its orbit with its gravitational heft. Pluto doesn’t meet this membership criterion because its orbit is peppered with other icy bodies in the Kuiper belt.
Breast Cancer Cases Are Rising Among Younger Women, Report Finds

Oct 3, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

Though breast cancer mortality is declining overall, Asian American women and women under 50 have experienced an uptick in diagnoses of the disease At only 34 years of age, Traci Delaney seemed to be an unlikely candidate for developing breast cancer. As she tells Roni Caryn Rabin of the New York Times, even her insurance declined to cover an imaging scan that her doctor ordered, despite the fact that she’d felt a hard mass in her right breast.
World's First Ultra-Precise Nuclear Clock Is Within Reach After Major Breakthrough, Researchers Say

Sep 23, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Shi En Kim

The technology, enabled by thorium atoms, could keep time more accurately than atomic clocks and enable new discoveries about gravity, gravitational waves and dark matter Clocks are the bedrock of modern physics and technology, as they allow scientists to assess fundamental scientific theories, and they make GPS and telecommunications possible.