Three Incoming GPSW Students Win Taylor / Blakeslee Graduate Fellowships
Congratulations to incoming GPSW students Ashley D’Souza, Ana Georgescu, and Alex Megerle for winning 2025-26 Taylor/Blakeslee Fellowships. Dedicated to supporting students who have been accepted into graduate science writing programs, the fellowships offer $6,000 to each recipient.
“Receiving the Taylor/Blakeslee fellowship means so much to me, both personally and professionally,” Ashley D’Souza said in a statement produced by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, the nonprofit group that organizes the fellowship. “My goal as a writer and naturalist is to heal how people relate to the environment. This fellowship will help support my studies so I can become a stronger journalist and storyteller and make a real impact. I’m so grateful to CASW for believing in me.”
Ashley joins the GPSW with an undergraduate degree in computer science from Rice University and bylines in publications including Pride Source, Brookline.News, The Margins, and more.
This year’s Taylor / Blakeslee Fellows spanned a broad range of expertise and scientific fields. Alex Megerle, another Taylor / Blakeslee recipient, comes to the GPSW with a background in biology and experience writing for The Enterprise newspapers on Cape Cod, the nonprofit Advocates for Snake Preservation, and the world-renowned Marine Biological Laboratory.
One incoming student, Ana Georgescu, was selected to receive an “enhanced fellowship” that’s specifically earmarked for a student who will cover the physical sciences. Her fellowship includes an additional stipend for fund travel for reporting projects and mentorship from a senior journalist.
“With CASW’s support and the guidance of my mentor, it feels possible to take on bigger, bolder stories, especially in physics,” said Georgescu, who joins the GPSW Class of 2026 with a degree in astrophysics and physics from Harvard University. “It’s a field that’s close to my heart, full of exciting developments in both academic and industry research, and I’m eager to tell the stories behind them.”
Congratulations to all of the Taylor / Blakeslee Graduate Fellows. You can read about all of the winners here and check out our entire Class of 2026 here.
The GPSW Welcomes the Class of 2026
The GPSW is thrilled to announce our Class of 2026. This year’s incoming students come from across the world and bring a broad spectrum of skills and expertise. We’re delighted to welcome:
Laura Martin Agudelo is a science journalist with a humanities background. Growing up in Bogotá, she learned from her grandfather that curiosity is a way of life—whether tracking ants in the forest or devouring books together. This mindset convinced her that science and the humanities aren’t just connected, they are inseparable.After receiving two degrees in social sciences from Sorbonne University, she became a staff reporter at La Revue du Praticien, a French medical journal, where she has covered public health for the past five years.
Zoe Beketova is a writer from Moscow and London with a master’s degree in developmental neuroscience. She spent the past three years between University College London and Yale University researching the causal mechanisms of psychosis. Outside the lab, Zoe has covered topics ranging from genomics and fertility fraud to hospital bankruptcy and nursing shortages.
Ashley D’Souza writes to bring people closer to the nature around them. They believe that conservation efforts depend on individuals developing personal relationships with wildlife. Their passion for the environment led them to journalism. After moving from Austin, Texas to Boston, they left a career in software engineering and started blogging about birds. They’ve spent the last two years as a freelance multimedia journalist, covering topics from bird flu and beech leaf disease to anti-abortion centers and housing inequity. Their work appears in Pride Source, Brookline.News, The Margins, and more.
Ana Georgescu is a writer and science communicator originally from Romania. She studied astrophysics and physics at Harvard and most recently worked at a science communications agency in New York City, supporting early-stage biotech and space health organizations in translating complex science for broader audiences. Her projects have spanned topics including gene therapy, neurological disorders, precision oncology, and astronaut health.
Jamie Jiang reports on disasters. For the last three years, that meant reporting on wildfire survivors and solutions to catastrophic wildfires in far Northern California. Jamie graduated with a bachelor’s in linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She got hooked on investigative journalism when she broke a story about COVID-19 outbreaks in Missouri prisons. Since then, she’s been writing about disasters and how people recover from them. Her work has aired on public radio stations, including Kansas City’s KCUR 89.3FM, Northern California’s North State Public Radio, Sacramento’s CapRadio, and others. She currently works as a reporter and research assistant to an incarcerated environmental journalist.
Lucie McCormick is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and science journalist. Coming from an arts background, she found her way to science through a love of the night sky and eclipse chasing. Her projects in documentary production and news have focused on astronomy, rare geological formations, environmental impacts on mental health, and structural disparities in urban green spaces. Her work has been published in Scientific American, ABC News, PBS, and the BBC, among other outlets.
Alex Megerle is a biologist-turned-writer who loves a good story and the wild things in life. If you’re ever in the mood to watch a nature documentary, Alex is your guy! Originally from New Jersey, Alex has combined childhood loves of zoology and creative writing into a budding science communication career. He has written for The Enterprise newspapers on Cape Cod, the nonprofit Advocates for Snake Preservation, and the world-renowned Marine Biological Laboratory.
Julia Vaz is a journalist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She recently graduated from Brown University with degrees in Political Science and Modern Culture & Media. While at Brown, she led The Brown Daily Herald as Managing Editor of Newsroom and Vice President of The Herald‘s Editorial Board. Before that, she oversaw the paper’s environmental coverage. She has covered climate change, policy, and environmental justice for Heatmap News, Inside Climate News, and New Hampshire Public Radio.
Longer bios of our incoming students are available here. Welcome, Class of 2026!
Rachel Becker, ’15, Wins Golden State Journalism Award
Congratulations to Rachel Becker, ’15, for winning a Golden State Journalism Award in the Environmental Reporting category. A longtime water reporter for the nonprofit newsroom, CalMatters, Rachel won for a series of stories that collectively document the geographical and human impacts of California’s water crisis. Judges noted that her work highlights how the effect of depleting groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley has disproportionately impacted low-income residents and led to a battle between farmers and regulators.
“Becker’s coverage shines because of her deep reporting, thoughtful storytelling, and empathy for people caught in the crosshairs of water politics,” the judges said.
The Golden State Journalism Award adds to Rachel’s growing pile of honors. In 2021 she won first place for Outstanding Beat Reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists for a series of stories that highlighted water contamination in the wake of local wildfires, and in 2022, she was the inaugural recipient of the Water Education Foundation’s Rita Schmidt Sudman Award for Excellence in Water Journalism.
Before moving to CalMatters, Rachel was a science and health reporter at The Verge. Congratulations, Rachel!
Two GPSW Students Win Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes
Congratulations to Anika Jane Beamer and Paula Rowińska, both in the Class of 2025, for winning Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes—accolades that honor the best MIT student writing.
Anika Jane won two awards—the Obermayer Prize for Writing for the Public for her piece “Decoding Lyme Disease,” which chronicles mathematician Deanna Needell’s hunt for a cure for Lyme, and the Enterprise Poets Prize for Imagining a Future for her piece “The Dropoff,” an essay that asks, “When does curiosity become a harbinger of destruction?”
Paula Rowińska scooped up the S. Klein Prize for Scientific Writing for her story “Beyond the Stereotype: Anorexia in All Shapes and Sizes,” which challenges conventional notions of eating disorders.
Ilona Karmel awards each come with prize winnings ranging from $500 to $2,000. Congratulations Anika Jane and Paula! You can read more work from the Class of 2025 on Scope, the official publication of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Abdullahi Tsanni, ’23, Wins an Excellence in Health Care Journalism
Congratulations to Abdullahi Tsanni, ’23, for winning a 2024 Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. Abdullahi scooped up a first place prize in the Public Health, Small Division category alongside journalist Jon Cohen for their coverage tracking infectious disease in Nigeria for Science Magazine. Their award-winning coverage includes a story on the origins of mpox in Nigeria and a profile of Dr. Christian Happi, a molecular biologist who has built a ground-breaking genomics center.
Abdullahi’s reporting on global health issues has also appeared in MIT Technology Review, Nature, Science News, STAT, and Popular Science, among other outlets, and has received support from The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Congratulations, Abdullahi! You can read all of the winning entries here.
Join us for the thesis presentations of the Class of 2025! Be intrigued, educated and sometimes called to action. May 15, 2025
Presentations will begin at 10am on Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/95936903596
Featured presentations:
Dr. Alan Lightman Fights For Academic Freedom in The Atlantic
The Dark Ages are back, says Alan Lightman, physicist, novelist, and Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. In a new essay published in The Atlantic, Lightman traces the history of academic freedom and makes the case that it and the ability of higher education institutions to operate without government overreach or interference underpins invention, scientific advancement, and creative expression.
“Academic freedom is the oxygen and the light of higher education,” Lightman writes. “Growing things need both. Aren’t colleges and universities the nurseries of faculty, students, and their surrounding society? We need air. Instinctively, we seek light, just as some plants will change their pattern of growth in order to receive the sunlight needed for growth. It’s called phototropism. The petals of sunflowers actually track the movement of the sun throughout the day, changing their direction to point toward the sun.”
Lightman points to the role higher education institutions have played in the development of scientific innovations ranging from the first artificial heart to CRISPR gene editing technologies to artificial intelligence, as well as cultural contributions forged within academia’s walls that span literature, law, anthropology, and political philosophy, among myriad other areas.
“Academic freedom is the greatest lesson we can give to our students,” he writes. “Our young people are shaping the future. Do we want them to be afraid to express their ideas? Do we want them to be afraid to explore, to invent, to challenge the status quo? Do we want them to be afraid of being who they are?”
Alex Viveros, ’24, Named a Covering Workplace Mental Health Fellow
Congratulations to Alex Viveros, ’24, for winning a Covering Workplace Mental Health Fellowship. Alex and 13 other journalists from across the US were selected by The National Press Foundation to attend a two-day training workshop in Washington D.C. that will address issues around mental health and stigma in US workplaces.
Alex is the Town and Health Reporter for the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Previously, he held internship positions at Science News, Chemical and Engineering News, Science Magazine, and The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and led The Tufts Daily as its managing editor and editor-in-chief. His bylines can also be found in The Boston Globe.
You can learn about all of the winners here. Congratulations, Alex!
Heatmap News Team That Includes 2 GPSW Alumni Wins a National Magazine Award
Heatmap News, a digital publication launched in 2023 that covers issues and impacts related to climate change, just won its first National Magazine Award. The publication scooped up the National Magazine Award for Service Journalism for “Decarbonize Your Life,” a reporting series that offers research-based guidance on how to reduce your carbon footprint and educates readers on the ways in which their personal decisions affect climate change.
Two GPSW alumni—Emily Pontecorvo, ’19, and Andrew Moseman, ’08—made significant contributions to the 15-part series. Emily wrote four stories that cover decarbonization issues ranging from installing solar panels to the climate impacts of home appliances, and Andrew wrote one story that offers readers guidance on shopping for electric vehicles.
Judges said that the series “presents an irrefutable answer to the argument that there’s nothing an individual can do in the fight against climate change” and called it “the very definition of service with impact.” They praised the Heatmap team for their in-depth reporting and ability to explain and navigate such a complex topic clearly.
You can read the entire “Decarbonize Your Life” series here.
William Von Herff, ’23, Wins Early Career Fellowship
Congratulations to William Von Herff, ’23, for being named one of three Early Career Fellows by The Open Notebook. Dedicated to helping promoting science journalism and to helping launch young journalists’ careers, the program pairs each fellow with a mentor and provides opportunities to report on the craft of science journalism. William will be mentored by Victoria Jaggard, executive editor at Science News and former executive editor for science at National Geographic.
The fellowship will build on William’s growing journalism portfolio. Currently, he is an environment reporter at The Provincetown Independent and has landed bylines in The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, WIRED, Hakai Magazine, Popular Science, Atlas Obscura, Birding Magazine, BirdNote, and The Outside Story. We can’t wait to see what William produces at The Open Notebook. You can read more about all of the 2025 Early Career Fellows here.
Dr. Paula Rowińska, ’25, Wins Austria’s Science Book of the Year
Congratulations to Dr. Paula Rowińska, ’25, for winning Austria’s Science Book of the Year award in the Natural Sciences and Technology category for her book Mapmatics: A Mathematician’s Guide to Navigating the World. Awarded by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Researches, the prize honors works that make science accessible to the broader public. Nominees are decided by a jury of journalists, librarians, researchers, and experts from the publishing industry and winners are chosen by public vote.
Mapmatics explores how maps and math shape our understanding of the world and the ways in which we navigate it through case studies on subjects ranging from earthquakes to air travel. The book has garnered praise from publications like New Scientist, which called it “entertaining, illuminating…An engaging look at a fascinating subject,” and The Guardian, which called it, “an expansive journey through time and place to reveal how the human experience has been – and continues to be – intrinsically linked to the maps we use to navigate our way through the world.”
Paula joined the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing with a Ph.D. in mathematics and statistics from Imperial College London. Congratulations on the major book win.
Giorgia Guglielmi, ’17, Named a FRONTIERS Science Journalist in Residency
Congratulations to Giorgia Guglielmi, ’17, for winning a FRONTIERS Science Journalism in Residency Programme grant. Offered to ten early, mid, and established career science journalists from across the US and select European countries, the program funds residencies of three to five months at European research institutions and up to €6,000 per month support to fund journalistic work.
Giorgia will spend her time at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, where she’ll investigate systems of self-organization, ranging from cellular and biological systems to ecological ones.
You can read about the winners and their residencies here and learn more about the Science Journalism in Residency Programme here. Congratulations, Giorgia!
