There are over 500 organizations on campus at Ohio University, and students continually bring fresh ideas for new clubs each year. One of the more recently founded groups is The Lynx Rufus, a student-run scientific magazine.
Last summer, The Lynx Rufus was just a dream for founder and former editor Alicia Szczesniak, a May 2025 graduate who studied journalism strategic communication and geology. Now, over a year later, it is a tight-knit circle of about 20 writers.
According to its Bobcat Connect page, the magazine provides “breaking news and in-depth stories on everything from the environment to medicine to engineering,” among other topics.
“The club was meant to be more of a long-form science magazine,” Szczesniak said. “There weren't really any science publications (at OU). It was for people who wanted to write about something that might not necessarily be a fit anywhere else.”
Szczesniak shared she wanted to do something with her geology minor, while still using her interest in writing. Looking beyond herself, she wanted to allow STEM majors to write about their interests.
“I knew quite a few STEM people that were like, ‘I like writing, but I don’t really know what to do with that,’” she said.
Szczesniak now works in Logan, Ohio, with the Logan Daily News and Perry County Tribune, but reflected on her favorite stories she wrote for The Lynx Rufus.
“I wrote this one article I was really proud of, about the environmental impacts of the Gaza crisis, and I did a separate one on the microclimates of Hocking Hills,” she said.
When Szczesniak graduated, The Lynx Rufus was passed on to Erin Rought, a senior studying sociology-criminology, who serves as the club’s president.
“We write about anything we want, as long as we can relate it to science,” Rought said. “We’re just trying to show people science is everywhere. Science can be fun. Science is not this big, scary thing.”
Meetings for The Lynx Rufus are about an hour as scheduled, and Rought believes the best part about the club is that members build friendships while doing something they love.
“We normally only spend like 20 minutes in the meeting, then the rest of the time talking, communicating, basically just being buddies,” Rought said.
This year, the group hopes to hold fundraisers and get new people involved, and Rought has a few stories planned.
“I plan on writing a fun one about Pokémon and another one about how quickly I can learn an instrument,” she said.
Rought also reflected on her favorite pieces she wrote for the publication last year.
“I’ve done the science behind a heartbreak ... what happens to the body and mind as you’re going through a heartbreak and a really, really, really long one about Ehlers-Danlos Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder,” she said. “I love both.”
Phoenix Brown, a freshman studying sports management, has joined multiple media organizations on campus and spent a large portion of his high school career involved in creative groups. Brown thinks The Lynx Rufus is something that would interest him, as well as the rest of the freshman class.
“It integrates media with education; it’s a different approach to the media side of things,” he said. “I think that’d be great for a lot of the freshmen here.”
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The Post would like to acknowledge that Szczesniak worked at the publication during her time at OU.
