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.

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.

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!

Congratulations to Maria Parazo Rose, ’22; Emma Foehringer Merchant, ’22; and Lisa Song, ’09, for scooping up accolades from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Dedicated to honoring the best nonfiction writing on environmental topics, the awards are the world’s largest and most comprehensive environmental journalism competition. This year’s winners were selected from 532 entries across 10 categories.

Maria Parazo Rose, a spatial data analyst at Grist, won the Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting (small publications category) as part of a team from Grist that examined how public higher education institutions in the US continue to profit from land stolen from Indigenous communities. Their story, “Misplaced Trust,” used investigative reporting, data analysis, and data mapping to comprehensively analyze how 14 land grant universities generate millions in revenue from extractive industries that rely on land stolen from more than 123 Indigenous nations.

“This reporting sets a new standard for storytelling using data-driven analysis in investigative journalism,” the judges wrote, citing the database of state land trust data and searchable map that ties each university to specific mining, timber, and fossil fuel industries.

Emma Foehringer Merchant, a freelance environment reporter, also won a third place award in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting (small publications) category as part of a reporting team from Undark Magazine. Their multi-part story, “Shreds of Evidence: The Revolution of Environmental DNA,” explores how eDNA is changing how researchers study everything from how pathogens spread to endangered species conservation. Judges called the story, “fascinating, unique and well told.”

Lisa Song, an investigative reporter at ProPublica who covers environment, energy, and climate change, also won an honorable mention in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting (large publications) category as part of a ProPublica team. Their multi-part story, “Roots of an Outbreak,” uses on-the-ground investigative reporting across multiple countries as well as data analysis to explore how human activity is driving disease epidemics and “spillover” outbreaks wherein diseases spread from animals to humans. Judges described the reporting package as “well crafted and powerful,” adding that “excellent photos and videos made this project very accessible to readers.”

You can read all of the SEJ award-winning pieces here. Congratulations Maria, Emma, and Lisa!

Congratulations to Abdullahi Tsanni, ’23, for being named a finalist for a 2024 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award in the category “Science Reporting.” Abdullahi’s story, “The Uncomfortable Truths About Visa Discrimination and Global Health Conferences,” was published in The BMJ in January of 2023. It chronicles a disturbing pattern of health professionals from Africa being barred from entering countries to participate in global health conferences they had been invited to attend and details what these professionals endure in order to overcome significant barriers of entry.

Abdullahi’s story builds on a body of his reporting work that shines a light on scientific and logistical challenges facing researchers across Africa. Aside from The BMJ, his global health and biotechnology reporting has appeared in Nature, Science, Science News, STAT, and Popular Science, among other outlets, and has received support from The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. You can read more of his work here and learn about all of the NASW Science in Society honorees here.

Congratulations, Abdullahi!

Interested in applying to the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing? Join us for our fall admissions information webinar. Faculty and staff will give an overview of the curriculum, financial aid, and admissions procedures, and will answer questions from viewers. Details for the event are here:

The MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing Information Webinar

Friday, November 22 at 3pm. 

You can watch the recording of the information session on YouTube here.

In Australia, a spiny caterpillar molts, removing its head and stacking it on top of a new one. Deep in the ocean, a marine worm that grows inside sea sponges sprouts hundreds of butts with no end in sight. Across the United States, “moon trees” grown from seeds that traveled on the Apollo 14 space mission quietly provide shade and beautify towns.

These species, and many, many more, are profiled in the pages of Atlas Obscura: Wild Life, a new book by Cara Giaimo, ’15, and Joshua Foer that features more than 500 species of animals, plants, and natural phenomena from across the globe. Written in conjunction with freelance contributors from all seven continents, the book showcases living wonders all around us—from the world’s loudest bird to scorpions that die from constipation—and drives home just how majestic Earth’s wild biodiversity truly is.

“It makes me want to run upstairs, pack a bag, and bolt away to some far-flung corner of this astounding planet. Because now I know there are immortal jellyfish out there, and skink mansions and peacock spiders, and I know where and how to see them!,” wrote Mary Roach, author of New York Times bestselling science books Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.  “If I can just manage to stop compulsively reading every single page here, I’ll be on my way.”

Atlas Obscura: Wild Life hits shelves today. Click here to order your copy.

How does a delivery driver distribute hundreds of packages in a single day? Why can maps help to win elections? Where should we look for serial killers? The answers all lie in the delicate intersections between mathematics and cartography.

In her book Mapmatics: A Mathematician’s Guide to Navigating the World, Dr. Paulina Rowińska, ’25, dives into how maps and math shape our understanding of the world and how we navigate it. Called “an engaging look at a fascinating subject” by New Scientist Magazine and “an expansive journey through time and place” by The Observer, Mapmatics showcases how cartography influences our worldviews through concrete examples in areas ranging from earthquakes to air travel.

Paulina holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and statistics from Imperial College London. Mapmatics is her first book. Congratulations, Paulina.

As part of the Cambridge Science Festival, Jessica Chomik-Morales, ’25, will host a free live recording of her neuroscience podcast Mi Última Neurona on Wednesday, September 25 from 6:30 to 8 pm at the MIT Museum.

Now in its fourth season, the Spanish language podcast is hosted by Jessica and features a broad array of neuroscientists of Hispanic origin. Guests hailing from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Spain have all appeared on the podcast and contributed to far-reaching conversations that aim to demystify neuroscience to listeners and to build bridges between neuroscience disciplines.

The live recording will feature guest Dr. Héctor de Jesús-Cortés, a neuroscientist at the University of Puerto Rico and a scientific advisor for Mi Última Neurona. Previously, Héctor was a researcher in MIT’s Bear Lab, studying how the brain learns and stores memories.

The Mi Última Neurona live recording will be conducted in Spanish with auto-captions provided in English. The event is free, but tickets are encouraged. Seating is first come, first served. More information about the event is available on the MIT Museum’s website.

Maria Parazo Rose is scooping up accolades left and right. In addition to recently winning the University of Florida Award in Investigative Data Journalism, Maria was also named a 2024 Nova Media Fellow. During her fellowship year, Maria, a spatial data analyst at Grist, will investigate how accelerating climate change pushes Native communities into a new wave of forced relocations. For her project, Maria will build a publicly accessible data map that showcases patterns in federal climate assistance distribution and tracks both movement and risks within Indigenous communities. A full description of the project is available here. 

Maria’s Nova Media project augments and builds off her reporting on Indigenous communities at Grist. Over the past few years, Maria has covered how US land grant universities capitalize on stolen Indigenous land through fossil fuel projects, mining, timber, and other extractive industries, the ways in which Indigenous communities are fighting back against false climate solutions, and failed efforts to protect Indigenous land. 

Dedicated to giving journalists opportunities to broaden their knowledge of the interconnected web of factors that affect health, healthcare, and well-being, the Nova Media Fellowship offers recipients $100,000 in funding along with additional support for travel and conference attendance. 

Congratulations, Maria!

Congratulations to Maria Parazo Rose, ’22, and Kelso Harper, ’21, for scooping up 2024 Online Journalism Awards. Dedicated to honoring excellence in digital journalism, the OJAs recognize storytelling at large and small, legacy and non-traditional publications across the globe.

Maria Rose, who is currently a spatial data analyst at Grist, won the University of Florida Award in Investigative Data Journalism (small/medium newsroom) as part of a collaboration between Grist, The Data-Driven Reporting Project, and the Pulitzer Center. Their series, “Misplaced Trust,” covers how the US public higher education system was founded on stolen Indigenous land and how land grant universities still capitalize on this theft through fossil fuel projects, mining, timber, and other extractive industries. The wide-reaching project includes on-the-ground reporting, data analysis and mapping, and multimedia elements.

Kelso Harper was also a finalist for the Excellence in Social Media Engagement Award (medium newsroom) as part of the team at Scientific American, where they are a multimedia producer and host. Scientific American‘s TikTok, which currently has more than 10 million views, was recognized for a series of entertaining videos on subjects ranging from the truth about the Luddites to faulty ways companies test period products to glow-in-the-dark house plants.

Congratulations, Maria and Kelso!

Congratulations to Daelin Brown, ’23, for winning a Hearst Journalism Award in the Investigative Reporting category. Her winning story—”In Portsmouth, a Superfund Site Pollutes a Creek, Threatens a Neighborhood and Defies a Quick Fix“—was published in Inside Climate News and chronicles how waste from an inactive scrap metal facility in Virginia poisoned area waterbodies and the health risks that local residents face as a result.

Daelin reported the story as an undergraduate at Hampton University, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in journalism before coming to the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. She shares the award and an accompanying $3,000 scholarship with a student reporting team from Hampton U that includes Jordin Wright, Tigist Ashaka, Sherdell Baker, Sydney Broadnax, Noah Hogan, and Mikayla Roberts.

You can read about all of the winners here. Congratulations, Daelin!