April 2, 2018
Washington, D.C.— A digital story about a menstrual cycle on a gadget and a video about dancing bees have won the 2017 D.C. Science Writers Association’s (DCSWA) annual Newsbrief Awards.
Longform journalism often gets accolades, but short pieces are the true workhorses of science communication. In the spirit of recognizing these unsung works of excellence, DCSWA has offered the Newsbrief Awards since 2009. In 2015, DCSWA added a Multimedia category to the award.
For the 2017 award, two separate panels of distinguished science writers judged more than 80 entries.
In the Writing category, Emily Mullin won for her piece “This Gadget Has a Real Working Menstrual Cycle,” published in MIT Technology Review.
Based in Washington, D.C., Emily Mullin is the associate editor for biomedicine at MIT Technology Review. Previously, she was a contributor at Forbes and an associate editor at FierceBiotech, an industry newsletter. She holds a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University.
The judges recognized Nicholas St. Fleur‘s New York Times story, “Newly Discovered Gecko Escapes Danger Naked and Alive,” with an honorable mention in the Writing category. St. Fleur is a Times science contributor who writes about archaeology, paleontology, space, and more for the Trilobites column.
In the Multimedia category, Karin Heineman earned top prize for her video “The Bee Dance” on Inside Science.
Karin is the executive producer for Inside Science, an editorially independent nonprofit science news service run out of the American Institute of Physics. She has produced over 800 videos on science, technology, engineering, and math for over 18 years. She studied imaging and digital art at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and dietetics at the University of Northern Colorado.
An honorable mention in the Multimedia category went to Alexa Billow, Chris Burns, and Rachael Lallensack for their video “Tomato ancestor evolved 50 million years ago near Antarctica.”
Chris Burns, a multimedia producer for Science magazine, creates videos and animations that highlight the fascinating articles and papers published every week in the magazine. Alexa Billow was a multimedia intern at Science and is now a science writer for the American Chemical Society. Her work has appeared in various educational YouTube channels including AAAS/Science, Reactions, SciShow, and Eons. Rachael Lallensack, a D.C.-based freelance science journalist, writes about everything from CRISPR butterfly wings to conservation efforts on the border between the United States and Mexico. Her work has previously appeared in Science and Nature, and this is her second Newsbrief honorable mention.
Kate Travis and Sarah Zielinski also won a Multimedia honorable mention for their video “Watch a badger bury a cow,” which appeared on Science News’ YouTube channel.
Kate Travis is the digital director for Science News, overseeing editorial programming and production on the website, social media, video, and other digital platforms. Previously she was an editor at Science Careers and the news editor for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Sarah Zielinski is managing editor of Science News for Students and writes the Wild Things blog for Science News magazine. Her work has also appeared in Smithsonian, Slate, National Geographic News, Scientific American, Eos, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. She won a DCSWA Newsbrief Award in 2010.
An award ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 7, during DCSWA’s annual Professional Development Day at the American Association for Advancement of Science building in Washington, D.C. Each winning team will receive $300 and a trophy; those awarded honorable mentions will receive certificates.
DCSWA members were eligible to submit entries published between January 1 and December 31, 2017. The D.C. Science Writers Association is an organization of more than 500 science reporters, editors, authors, and public information officers based in the national capital area. Details on how to enter the 2018 Newsbrief Award will appear on the DCSWA website by the end of the year.
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Contact:
Christine Dell’Amore
rueparadis@gmail.com
newsbriefaward@gmail.com
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