Congratulations to Lisa Song, ’09, for winning a 2019 Communication Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and to Deborah Blum for being named a finalist. Supported by the W.M. Keck Foundation, Communication Awards “recognize excellence in reporting and communicating science, engineering, and medicine to the general public.”

As part of a team, Lisa takes home one of two Communications Awards in the online reporting category alongside journalists Al Shaw and Katie Campbell from ProPublica, Patrick Michels from Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, and Ranjani Chakraborty from Vox. Their winning piece—Flood Thy Neighbor—examines the unexpected impact that levees designed to protect one community have on neighboring areas. The other online reporting award went to The GroundTruth Project and FRONTLINE PBS for their interactive film about rising seas around the Marshall Islands.

Lisa isn’t the only MIT science writer taking home honors. Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, was named a finalist in the Book category for The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, a work that chronicles the heroes behind how food was made safe in the United States.

Lisa and Deborah’s works were selected from 346 entries that were published or aired in 2018. They will be honored at a ceremony on October 16. Congratulations Lisa and Deborah!