The GPSW is proud to announce our incoming Class of 2022. This year’s cohort hails from a truly broad spectrum of science and writing backgrounds. Our eight incoming students are:

• Leah Campbell comes to the GPSW after completing PhD work at UNC Chapel Hill on hazard mitigation, disaster recovery, and stormwater management. Prior to that, she conducted fisheries research in Bristol Bay and interned with the National Park Service on shoreline change monitoring.

• Iris Crawford is a journalist, organizer, and Taylor/Blakeslee Fellow whose bylines can be found in the San Francisco Chronicle, Yes! Magazine, Colorlines, and Oakland Voices, among other publications. Her coverage of decarbonization debates for the investigative news outlet InvestigateWest was syndicated to the Associated Press, US News and World Report, and Grist. 

• Grace van Deelen brings a background in biology and anthropology to the GPSW, along with research experience studying yield variability on coffee farms in Costa Rica and native pollinators in southern Wisconsin.

• James Dinneen is a 2021-22 CASW Taylor/Blakeslee Fellow and a freelance journalist with bylines in Science, Discover Magazine, Popular Science, Undark Magazine, bioGraphic, Hakai Magazine, Mongabay, and Smithsonian, among other publications.

• Shel Evergreen is a multimedia science communicator who helped launch a community-led climate action plan for the City of Boulder, ran communications for the Colorado State University Energy Institute, and documented XPower, Inc.’s renewable energy microgrids before coming to the GPSW.

• Emma Foehringer Merchant is a journalist who comes to the GPSW armed with a degree in environmental analysis from Pomona College, and bylines in Grist and The New Republic. She was formerly a staff writer for Greentech Media.

• Maria Rose served as a producer on Resettled, a podcast that explores the refugee resettlement process in the US, and for NPR’s Morning Edition in Pittsburgh. She has also reported for StoryCorps, The Allegheny Front, and Pittsburgh and Richmond, Virginia’s NPR flagship stations. 

• Shafaq Zia was first introduced to science writing at Northwestern University in Qatar, where she earned a degree in journalism and served as the managing editor of The Daily Q. As a reporting intern for STAT, she covered healthcare technology and the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are so excited to see the excellent work these students will produce next year. You can read more about our incoming and current students right over here.