National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications

Albert Oppong-Ansah

Science Journalist: Local/Regional

Albert Oppong-Ansah is a Ghanaian journalist with over 14 years of experience in environmental, science, and development reporting. He is the Editor at the Ghana News Agency (GNA), where he leads the Environment, Science, Energy, and Agriculture desk, coordinating nationwide coverage and mentoring reporters. Under his leadership, GNA reaches over 200,000 monthly digital readers and serves more than 150 media subscribers.

His journalism has influenced national policy, held leaders accountable, and contributed to academic research. Beyond the newsroom, Albert works as a communication consultant, producing documentaries, animations, explainer videos, and strategic communication materials for organisations including the EPA, ECOWAS, IUCN, UNFCCC RCC, and the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition.

A Wolfson Press Fellow at Cambridge, Albert holds an MPhil in Innovation Communication and has won five national journalism awards. He is passionate about using storytelling to drive sustainable development and climate action across Africa.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award recognizes my dedication to making complex scientific and environmental issues understandable and relevant to the public. It validates my purpose of elevating science reporting, inspires me to innovate in storytelling, strengthens my role as a bridge between scientists, policymakers, and citizens. Above all, it fuels my dream for headline science news in Ghana."

Submitted work

Bing Lin

Research Scientist: Graduate Student

Bing Lin is a conservation scientist and photojournalist exploring the intersection of nature and human nature in the Anthropocene. A postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney’s Thriving Oceans Research Hub, he studies coral reefs that are thriving against the odds to guide global conservation priorities. Bing earned his Ph.D. in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy from Princeton University, where his interdisciplinary research integrated ecology, policy, and behavioral science to inform lasting conservation action. An Emerging League member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a freelance science journalist, he blends rigorous reporting with narrative writing and visual storytelling to engage audiences with the shifting state of sustainability in the (un)natural world. His forthcoming book, A Sea of Fading Color (University of Chicago Press, 2028), immerses readers in the vibrant yet imperiled realm of coral reefs and the communities—near and far—that depend on them.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award affirms the power of narrative and visual storytelling in advancing conservation science. It recognizes both my efforts to bridge these disciplines and the urgent need for such work to inspire collective action—to confront what we have lost and safeguard all that we still stand to lose."

Submitted work

Calli McMurray

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Science Journalist - Early Career

Calli McMurray is a reporter at The Transmitter, where she covers neuroscience, research integrity and the structural and regulatory issues that affect the scientific world. Before joining The Transmitter in 2024, she interned at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where she won the 2024 David W. Miller Award for Young Journalists. Her work has also appeared in STAT, The Texas Observer, KFF Health News and elsewhere. She has a bachelor's degree in neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University.

What This Award Means to Me
"I’m honored to receive this award. It’s deeply validating to know that the often less-glamorous stories about scientific infrastructure are valued, and that my colleagues agree they are worth telling. I look forward to telling many more."

Submitted work

Chem Thug (J.C.)

Science Communicator: Independent

Chem Thug (J.C.) is a Brooklyn native that always kept his childhood wonder about the world. After completing a bachelors in chemistry, he was an educator for 3 years before pursuing his PhD in organic chemistry. During his six years of research, he began the Chem Thug channel with his wife, creating videos explaining chemical phenomena and debunking pseudo-science scams with an entertaining flair. With his PhD recently completed, he has fully committed himself to science communication and sharing his deep love of chemistry. At its core, his work seeks to elevate the general public’s awareness and appreciation for the complexity of life through the lens of chemistry. He hopes to instill in audiences of all ages a joy for learning and a desire to grapple with information critically.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award validates how important science communication is right now, and recognizes the unseen work and effort that goes into creating this type of content. For me, it is also something real I can hold onto to quiet the persistent voice of self-doubt."

Submitted work

Daniel Shailer

Science Journalist: Early Career

Daniel Shailer is a reporter for The Shetland Times covering fishing, fish farming and the marine environment.

Previously Daniel worked with the Associated Press' Mexico City bureau and with the local, non-profit Tucson Sentinel in Arizona. His freelance work has appeared in the Guardian, New Yorker, Scientific American, Mongabay and Scottish investigative cooperative The Ferret. He has won awards from the Overseas Press Club, Arena for Journalism in Europe and Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. He also likes wild swimming.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award is not only a practical boost for my work, but a tremendously meaningful endorsement of the risks I took — like so many early-career reporters have to — pursuing what I thought could make for significant stories. I am chuffed to bits."

Submitted work

Emily Zhang

Science Communicator: Organizational

Emily Zhang is a writer and director specializing in science YouTube. She has created dozens of videos on subjects ranging from the physics of bowling to the invention of the blue LED. Together her videos have received over 250 million views.

Her path began with a lifelong love of YouTube and an astrophysics degree from Columbia University. After graduating, she joined the science YouTube channel Veritasium as one of its first employees. There she cut her teeth running company operations and writing, directing, and producing videos, eventually creating some of the channel’s most successful videos from 2021 to 2024.

She now freelances across science YouTube, bringing stories to audiences from PhDs to first-time learners. To her, the core ingredients of rigorous research, clear writing, and creative storytelling never change.

What This Award Means to Me
"It means the world for this award to celebrate scicomm via new media, deliberately targeting nontraditional audiences, alongside scicomm via established publications. Great stories and explainers thrive anywhere! My fellow science communicators embody this, with such varied backgrounds working across so many different topics and platforms—I'm honored to be recognized with them."

Submitted work

Golda Arthur

Science Communicator: Independent

Golda Arthur is an award-winning audio producer and host who creates innovative and mission-driven podcasts that connect deeply with listeners. Over the course of her 20 year career in journalism, she’s worked in breaking news, produced long-form documentaries, and led teams of creative people at organizations like the BBC and Vox Media, in London and New York. She is the creator and host of Overlooked, an independent women’s health podcast. She teaches audio reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and lives in New York City.

What This Award Means to Me
"Winning this award has been an important validation of my work, and encourages me to continue to be ambitious and innovative about how we tell stories about what's at stake when it comes to women's health."

Submitted work

Ivàn Carrillo

Science Journalist: Freelance

Iván Carrillo is a science journalist and documentary filmmaker focused on climate change, environmental challenges, and scientific innovation, based in Mexico and Spain. He was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and is currently an explorer for the National Geographic Society, a grantee of the Pulitzer Center. He has produced documentary series such as 1.5 Degrees to Save the Planet (Televisa-Univision), The Future of the Planet (EarthX TV), and the feature film Last Call: Six Species Against Extinction. Carrillo collaborates with leading international media and produces TV series and documentaries that explore the most urgent issues at the intersection of science, society, and the environment. An award-winning journalist recognized for his storytelling, he approaches journalism not only as a tool to expose crises but as a means to illuminate solutions — driven by a deep belief that telling stories about hope and action is as essential as reporting on the problems themselves.

What This Award Means to Me
"To me, this award honors the power of science journalism to connect those who generate knowledge with those who use it — inspiring informed decisions, encouraging critical thinking, and defending reason and evidence in an age when they are increasingly under threat."

Submitted work

Jasmin Graham

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Research Scientist - Early Career

Jasmin Graham is a shark scientist and environmental educator specializing in shark and ray ecology and evolution. She was named the 2021 WWF Conservation Leader, Jasmin is passionate about science education and accessibility. She is President and CEO of Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS), which supports women of color in the field.

Her work spans science communication, social justice, outreach, and conservation, with a focus on protecting endangered elasmobranchs. She has appeared on National Geographic’s Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie, Dive In with Sylvia Earle, StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and numerous podcasts and webinars. She also hosted and directed a YouTube mini-series on PBS Terra, Sharks Unknown with Jasmin Graham and recently published a book called Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist. She holds a B.S. in Marine Biology and B.A. in Spanish from the College of Charleston and an M.Sc. in Biological Science from Florida State University.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award affirms my commitment to making science accessible, inclusive, and impactful. It recognizes the importance of lifting underrepresented voices in marine science and inspires me to continue bridging research, conservation, and community. It is my honor to help people move from fear to fascination when it comes to sharks."

Submitted work

Jeremy Faust

Research Scientist: Later Career

Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, is an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. He earned his MD and MS from The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and he completed his residency at Mount Sinai and Elmhurst Hospital.

Dr. Faust is Editor-in-Chief of MedPage Today and writes Inside Medicine on Substack, which examines public health policy, and evidence-based medicine. His epidemiological research, spanning Covid-19 to pediatric firearm mortality, has appeared in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Pediatrics, JAMA Network Open, Lancet Infectious Diseases, The American Journal of Public Health, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

His essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and Slate. He directs The Longwood Chorus, Boston’s 100-voice ensemble of healthcare professionals, and previously served as board president of the GRAMMY-winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth.

What This Award Means to Me
"I am just glad these awards exist and am profoundly grateful. Communicating science is a serious and essential discipline. The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications through the National Academies validates my work. It says, this is valuable, just like research or even patient care."

Submitted work

Jesse Nichols

Science Journalist: Early Career

Jesse Nichols is a multimedia journalist specializing in science and the environment. Nichols is the creator of the Grist science video series "Proof of Concept," which profiles the science and scientists behind some of the most surprising recent environmental research and discoveries. His work has received numerous awards, including an AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, Society for News Design Best of News Design Award, and a Northwest Emmy nomination. Nichols was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in visual journalism and chemistry from Western Washington University. He lives with his wife and son in Seattle, and works at the environmental news outlet Grist.

What This Award Means to Me
"Science journalism has always been a passion of mine. Starting in elementary school, I published a homemade science magazine that I made on Microsoft Word. Decades later, I'm still amazed that I get to do this work as a career. Being recognized with an award like this is nothing short of a dream come true!"

Submitted work

Joss Fong

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Science Communicator - Independent

Joss Fong is an independent journalist and video producer specializing in science and technology explainers. She helped start the Vox Video team in 2014 and spent nearly a decade there building an audience of more than 12 million subscribers. Her current project is a YouTube channel called Howtown, launched alongside journalist Adam Cole in May 2024. With a mission of increasing evidence literacy among the general public, the channel spotlights research methods in each monthly episode. Joss holds a master's degree in Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting from NYU and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

What This Award Means to Me
"The attention economy is a tenuous place to work. We publish on platforms owned by tech giants, sandwiched between celebrities, cat videos, and conspiracy theories. But every day we speak to thousands who've gone beyond the reach of traditional media, and this award makes me feel like we have giants by our side."

Submitted work

Lindsay Ejoh

Research Scientist: Graduate Student

Lindsay Ejoh is a final-year PhD Candidate in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, originally from Bamenda, Cameroon. Her PhD work investigates brain circuits underlying pain and pain relief in mice. Her long-term goal is to establish a laboratory as a principal investigator, dedicating her career to advancing our understanding of chronic pain, with an emphasis on gastrointestinal and other internal pain disorders. But if you know Lindsay, you know she loves a "side quest". Alongside research, Lindsay is very passionate about STEM outreach: communicating brain science facts to the general public and helping increase opportunities for underrepresented minorities in STEM. Lindsay also loves singing, playing guitar, content creation, traveling, and spending quality time with her loved ones.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award means a lot because it recognizes and affirms my efforts in science outreach and spreading the knowledge I learn about the brain and nervous system. It’s encouragement to push even harder towards my goals to make neuroscience accessible and exciting for all!"

Submitted work

Lois Parshley

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Science Journalist - Local/Regional

Lois Parshley is an award-winning investigative journalist, known for her wide-ranging reporting. Previously an editor at Foreign Policy and Popular Science, her work is regularly featured in publications like National Geographic, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Scientific American, and included in the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. Her work explores how science reverberates in people’s everyday lives, blending rigorous documentation with vivid narrative. Her reporting on science and geopolitics has repeatedly informed lawsuits and shaped policy debates, including being cited in Senate testimony and contributing to proposed national legislation.

What This Award Means to Me
"As a freelance journalist often operating without the support of a newsroom, I'm deeply grateful for this recognition. The stakes for inclusive, incisive journalism couldn't be higher, and I hope my work speaks to the urgent and continuing need for coverage of the critical science and health issues in these challenging times."

Submitted work

Matthew LaPlante

Research Scientist: Early Career

Matthew D. LaPlante is a journalist, author, university professor and climate scientist. As a print journalist, he has covered ritual infanticide in Africa, gang violence in Central America, the legacy of genocide in Eastern Asia, and insurgent warfare in the Middle East, and his work has been recognized with the Kavli Award for science journalism and the Ancil Payne Award for ethics in reporting. The books he writes, co-writes, and edits on health and human behavior include two New York Times best-sellers; his current project is a book about how rapid advances in climate prediction are enabling proactive adaptation. As a scientist, his peer-reviewed work is focused on understanding natural climate variability and its usefulness for the prediction of climate regimes and extremes in a warming world; it has been published in Geophysical Research Letters, Environmental Research Letters, the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Water, Atmosphere, and Science Communication.

What This Award Means to Me
"There's plenty of gray in my beard. So, I might not look like many people's expectations of someone who is quite new to being an scientist. But I'm still learning, growing, and sometimes stumbling. Being recognized as an "early career" researcher by the National Academies feels tremendously validating of this experience."

Submitted work

Article - The Seagull and the Snowpocalypse Submitted Work
Publisher: The Salt Lake Tribune

Category: Research Scientist: Early Career; Topic(s): Earth Sciences, Environment and Environmental Studies

Melanie Mitchell

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Research Scientist - Later Career

Melanie Mitchell is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research is at the intersection between artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems; she has authored or edited six books and published over 100 scholarly papers in these fields. Her 2009 book Complexity: A Guided Tour won the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award, and her 2019 book Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans was named as one of the five best books on AI by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Melanie’s public outreach on science includes a quarterly column for Science Magazine, a Substack newsletter on AI, a 2024 podcast on “The Nature of Intelligence,” and a free online course, “Introduction to Complexity” on the Santa Fe Institute’s Complexity Explorer website.

What This Award Means to Me
"I am thrilled and honored to receive this award. My public outreach work has been the most rewarding and impactful aspect of my career as a scientist. This award honors the value of such work, at a time when public awareness and knowledge about science is more essential than ever."

Submitted work

Nia Imara

Research Scientist: Later Career

Dr. Nia Imara is an artist, astrophysicist, and author who has created a singular career out of integrating art, science, and culture. As with all of her work, Imara’s 2025 book, Painting the Cosmos: How Art and Science Intersect to Reveal the Secrets of the Universe, draws inspiration from diverse traditions, while also centering on the celebration of black art, history, culture, and everyday life. Imara is a graduate of Kenyon College, earned her PhD in astrophysics from UC Berkeley, did her postdoctoral work at Harvard, and is currently a professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz, where she researches how stars are born. A committed educator, Imara is also the founder and director of Onaketa, a nonprofit that provides free STEM tutoring, mentoring, books, and other educational resources for black and brown youth in the United States and Ghana.

What This Award Means to Me
"Winning this award is an honor and a joy. My work comes from the heart, and for it to be recognized and appreciated like this, especially when it doesn’t fit into any convenient mold, is a wonderful gift."

Submitted work

Nicola Twilley

Science Journalist: Freelance

Nicola Twilley is author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, June 2024), which won the James Beard Award for Literary Writing, the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Literary Scholarship, the California Book Awards Gold Medal for Non-Fiction, and the Nautilus Book Awards Gold Medal for Journalism and Investigative Reporting, and was shortlisted for the BSHS Hughes Prize. Twilley is co-host of the popular and award-winning Gastropod podcast, which looks at food through the lens of history and science, and which is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eater. Her first book, Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, was co-authored with Geoff Manaugh and was named one of the best books of 2021 by Time Magazine, NPR, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award is an incredible honor. I am extremely grateful for the validation of my work to date, and the motivation it offers me for the future."

Submitted work

Rebecca Boyle

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Science Journalist - Freelance

As a journalist, Rebecca Boyle has reported from particle accelerators, genetic sequencing labs, bat caves, the middle of a lake, and the retractable domes of some of Earth’s largest telescopes. Her first book, OUR MOON: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (Random House, 2024) is a new history of humanity’s relationship with the Moon, which Rebecca has not yet visited on assignment. OUR MOON was a national bestseller and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award, as well as winner of the PEN Oakland Award. It was longlisted for the National Book Award in nonfiction, and is being translated into more than a dozen languages.

Based in Colorado Springs, Colo., Rebecca is a contributing editor at Scientific American and a contributing writer at Quanta Magazine.

What This Award Means to Me
"I am so happy to be recognized by institutions that support, fund, and acclaim the greatest gift of the Enlightenment: Human curiosity driving scientific research. These are dark times for science, creativity, and international collaboration, and this award will boost my ongoing efforts to show readers why these values will guide us into the future."

Submitted work

Rollie Williams

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Science Communicator - Organizational

Rollie Williams is the creator and host of Climate Town, an educational comedy video series focused on the climate crisis.

While working as a comedian in New York, he enrolled in Columbia University to get a master’s degree in climate science and policy and started Climate Town in 2020 to combine his passions for comedy and environmental education. His goal is to make climate science accessible and engaging to an audience of millions of viewers around the world by producing entertaining episodes that confront and demystify important environmental subjects.

Climate Town has received acknowledgments and awards including the Grist 50 Award, The Next Challenge for Media & Journalism, and the Walking Softer Young Leaders Award and has been recognized by news outlets including The New York Times and CBS.

He also has a dog named Howdy and a deep obsession with billiards.

What This Award Means to Me
"Receiving this award is an incredible honor, and it’s also a huge confidence boost for my career path. Climate communication is a fairly new and untested world, and such a prestigious award makes me feel like I’m on the right track. Thank you."

Submitted work

Sanket Jain

Science Journalist: Local/Regional

Sanket Jain is an award-winning independent journalist based in Maharashtra, India. He reports from remote regions overlooked in the global media, focusing on the intersection of climate change, public health, and social justice. For the past eight years, he has been documenting stories of rural India, home to 833 million people, often ignored by the mainstream media.

His reporting has appeared in more than 35 publications, including Yale Climate Connections, Science Magazine, Chemical & Engineering News, Live Science, People's Archive of Rural India, and Devex, reaching over a million readers.

In just eight years, Sanket has won 26 journalism awards. He was honored with the International News Media Association’s Leadership Award, named in Forbes 30 Under 30, and selected as Emerging Journalist of the Year by Covering Climate Now. His accolades include the One World Media Award, the Solutions Journalism Award, the International Sports Press Association’s Award, and New York University’s Online Journalism Award.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award affirms my passion for making science accessible, ensuring it is not confined to academia but reaches the remotest corners. This recognition amplifies the voices of communities whose struggles often remain overlooked and strengthens my resolve to continue uncovering these truths and connecting science with the lived realities."

Submitted work

Teresa Paneque Carreño

2025 TOP AWARD WINNER
Best Research Scientist - Graduate Student

Teresa Paneque-Carreno is a Chilean astronomer, she obtained her PhD in astronomy from Leiden University and the European Southern Observatory. Currently she is a 51 Pegasi B and Michigan Society Research Fellow at the University of Michigan with the role of Assistant Professor. She combines observations and theoretical models to understand the physical-chemical conditions of planet formation around young stars. In parallel to her scientific work, she has a deep commitment to science communication, with an online community of over 1 million people who follow her across various social media platforms. She is author of the top-selling saga of books "El Universo Segun Carlota", available in spanish in several countries of latin america. Additionally, she is the first female ambassador to UNICEF in Chile, country where she has been recognized by Forbes and other local rankings as one of the current female youth leaders.

What This Award Means to Me
"A tangible recognition of the effort behind doing both science research and communication. As a fully non-english profile, this award highlights the interest of the committee towards underrepresented groups in STEM. The prize will allow me to physically reach new locations in Chile and latin-america, inspiring many people from the global south with science."

Submitted work

Vanessa Pirotta

Research Scientist: Early Career

Vanessa is one of Australia’s most renowned wildlife scientists. Her research uses innovative technologies for wildlife conservation, working collaboratively across marine and terrestrial environments, merging cutting edge tech to access animals in unique ways.

She’s raising community awareness of Australia’s marine environment across all ages and backgrounds using an eclectic mix of platforms, including mainstream and social media, engaging with First Nations communities, school visits, books and television programs for children. Her communication is grounded in 15 years of innovative research.

Vanessa works directly Indigenous communities, merging First Nations and scientific knowledge to learn more about marine mammals. She’s also working to establish a community driven research project in the Kingdom of Tonga to ensure longevity and sustainability of the whale swim tourism industry.

Vanessa is a passionate about empowering the next generation to take up STEAM (Science, tech, engineering, art, math) based careers and and deeply committed to making science accessible to all.

What This Award Means to Me
"To be a recipient of this award is a great honour. This comes at a time where I continue to navigate non-traditional roles in science, merging scientific research, motherhood, and being a spokesperson to the nation to help Australians and the world better understand the world around them."

Submitted work

Winnie Karanja

Science Communicator: Organizational

Winnie Karanja is a visionary entrepreneur, speaker, and Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur transforming how families are introduced and engage with STEM education. Winnie is the Founder of Nakira’s World, a creative studio producing animation and digital content that spark early STEM literacy, curiosity, and the confidence children need to thrive. With a blend of creativity, strategy, and relentless drive, Winnie builds systems that make learning engaging, inclusive, and future-focused.

Winnie’s work has captivated audiences at universities, corporations, and conferences nationwide, where she shares insights on innovation, education, and leadership. Through Nakira’s World, Winnie champions representation and imagination in STEM, ensuring children see themselves as capable problem-solvers and creators. By reimagining how stories and learning intersect, Winnie is shaping the future of STEM learning and empowering the next generation of innovators.

What This Award Means to Me
"This award is an incredible honor and reflects Nakira’s World’s power to spark curiosity, wonder, and confidence in children. At the heart of our work is placing young girls at the center of discovery and reinforcing that they are not just participants but leaders, creators, and explorers shaping their world."

Submitted work

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Megan L. Ranney

Dr. Megan L. Ranney is an emergency physician, researcher, and national advocate for innovative approaches to public health. In July 2023, she joined Yale University as Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, where she is also the C.-E. A. Winslow Professor of Public Health. Her research focuses on developing, testing, and disseminating digital health interventions to prevent violence and related behavioral health problems, and on COVID-related risk reduction. She has held multiple national leadership roles, including as co-founder of GetUsPPE during the COVID-19 pandemic and Senior Strategic Advisor to AFFIRM at the Aspen Institute, focused on ending gun violence through a non-partisan public health approach. She was previously the Warren Alpert Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine, Deputy Dean of the School of Public Health, and Founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health at Brown University. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the Aspen Health Innovators’ Fellowship, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She earned her bachelor's degree in history of science, graduating summa cum laude, from Harvard University; her medical doctorate, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha, from Columbia University; and her master’s degree in public health from Brown University. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine and a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research at Brown University.

Tim Appenzeller

Tim Appenzeller leads Science's award-winning news section and supervises its global team of staff and freelance writers and editors. He has spent 40 years as an editor and writer specializing in science and the environment for magazines including Scientific American, U.S. News & World Report, and National Geographic. His National Geographic article "The Case of the Missing Carbon" won the Walter Sullivan award for excellence in science journalism in 2005, and his June 2007 National Geographic cover story on global warming, "The Big Thaw," shared an award for best explanatory reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Appenzeller was Science's Features Editor during the 1990s, and most recently was Chief Magazine Editor at Nature, responsible for its journalism and opinion.

David Biello

David Biello is the curator for TED Countdown, helping amplify solutions to global warming, accelerate action against climate change, and change the narrative around this crisis from doom and despair to realistic hope. Prior to that, he served as science curator at TED, working on talks featuring ideas from astronomy to zoology, including using gene drives to combat malaria, the mRNA revolution in vaccines, and the real impacts of sexual health restrictions. As part of his duties, he has helped judge and prepare finalists for TED’s Audacious Project, a philanthropic effort to pair compelling ideas with the funds to make an impact, including harnessing AI to develop new antibiotics and how to reduce vaccine spoilage. Prior to joining TED, he has been an award-winning journalist, reporting on the environment and energy since 1999—long enough to be cynical but not long enough to be depressed. He wrote for outlets ranging from Scientific American to The New York Times. He also hosted the duPont-Columbia award-wining documentary Beyond the Light Switch as well as The Ethanol Effect for PBS. And he is the author of the book The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age, an Editor’s Pick of The New York Times Book Review. He received a BA in English from Wesleyan University and a MS in Journalism from Columbia University. He currently lives with his daughter and son between a Olmsted-designed park and a world-famous graveyard in Brooklyn.

Erika Check Hayden

Erika Check Hayden is a San Francisco-based journalist and director of the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Erika was a reporter at the science journal Nature for 15 years, where she covered biomedical research, specializing in genetics, infectious disease, and science in Silicon Valley, and won multiple awards, including for her work on the 2014 Ebola epidemic. She now writes for a variety of publications. She began her career at Newsweek magazine in New York.

Chris Crawford

Dr. Chris S. Crawford is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama’s Department of Computer Science. He directs the Human-Technology Interaction Lab (HTIL). His research focuses on human-robot interaction and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). He has investigated systems that provide computer applications and robots with information about a user’s cognitive state. He previously developed a brain-drone racing system that was featured on over 800 news outlets including Discovery, USA Today, and the New York Times, and Forbes. Along with investigating brain-robot interaction applications, Dr. Crawford also developed Neuroblock, a tool designed to engage K-12 student in neurofeedback applications development. He recently won a NSF CAREER award for his research.

Beth Daley

Beth runs The Conversation, a national media outlet that unlocks research expertise for the public through journalism. A longtime Boston Globe climate reporter, Beth also worked at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting as a reporter and director of partnerships. As Director of Strategic Development at InsideClimate, she worked to diversify the Pulitzer Prize-winning news outlet's revenue stream. She attended Stanford University as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow in 2011/2012 and was a Pulitzer finalist for her climate coverage in 2008.

Nadia Drake

Nadia Drake is a science journalist who specializes in covering space exploration and the search for life beyond Earth. For many years, she was a contributing writer with National Geographic; most recently, she was the interim physics editor at Quanta Magazine, and she has written for numerous publications including Nature, The New York Times, Science News, and Scientific American. She holds a PhD in genetics from Cornell University and a graduate certificate in science communication from UCSC.

Laura Helmuth

Laura Helmuth is a freelance science editor, writer, and consultant with experience across a range of publications. She is the former editor in chief of Scientific American and a past president of the National Association of Science Writers. She has been an editor for The Washington Post, National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian, and Science magazines. She served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's standing committee on the science of science communication. She currently serves on the advisory boards of SciLine, The Transmitter, and 500 Women Scientists. She is a past board member of High Country News, Society for Science, and The Open Notebook. She was named a Friend of Darwin by the National Center for Science Education. She has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a birder and is active on the social media platform Bluesky at @laurahelmuth.bsky.social.

Ronald M. Latanision

Ronald M. Latanision is an American materials scientist, corrosion engineer, academic and businessman. He is an emeritus professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Neil Armstrong Distinguished Visiting professor at Purdue University, and serves as a senior fellow at Exponent, where he also served as a corporate vice president. Latanision served as co-editor-in-chief of Corrosion Reviews and is the editor-in-chief of the NAE Quarterly, The Bridge. He acted as a member of the International Corrosion Council, is a member of the NAE, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds the title of Fellow at NACE International, and ASM International.

Moira Shourie

Moira is the executive director of Los Angeles based Zócalo Public Square, a unit of ASU Media Enterprise. Previously, she was an executive at MTV Networks International and Outlook magazine, among India’s most widely read news magazines. She is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Emerson College, Boston, and a Sulzberger Fellow at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Moira is a board member at New America and on the board of governors at the Japanese American National Museum

Steven Strogatz

Steven Strogatz is the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics. He works in the areas of nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, often on topics inspired by the curiosities of everyday life. For example, he has explored the geometry of supercoiled DNA, the dynamics of the human sleep-wake cycle, the wobbling of London’s Millennium Bridge on its opening day, the topology of three-dimensional chemical waves, and the synchronization of fireflies and other biological oscillators. Perhaps his best-known research is his 1998 Nature paper on small-world networks, co-authored with his former student Duncan Watts. It has now been cited more than 50,000 times, according to Google Scholar, and is among the 100 most highly cited scientific papers of all time. Professor Strogatz studied at Princeton, Cambridge, and Harvard and taught at MIT before moving to Cornell in 1994. He has blogged about math for the New York Times and the New Yorker and has been a frequent guest on Radiolab and Science Friday. He currently co-hosts The Joy of Why, a podcast for Quanta Magazine in which he and his guests chat about some of the biggest unanswered questions in math and science today. His honors include MIT’s and Cornell’s highest teaching prizes; the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science (other recipients include Oliver Sacks, E.O. Wilson, and Freeman Dyson); and membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, Sync, The Calculus of Friendship, The Joy of x, and most recently, Infinite Powers, which was a New York Times Bestseller and a finalist for the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Janelle Wellons

When Janelle Wellons graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, she had no idea that it would spark the beginning of a career operating science instruments and spacecraft at the Moon, Saturn, and our own planet Earth. She is currently a Senior Mission Operations Engineer at ispace, inc., leading routine and critical space operations from the HAKUTO-R Mission Control Center as a Flight Director for the companies’ lunar lander missions. Previously, Janelle worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Earth observing MAIA, Sentinel-6, and SWOT missions as well as the Cassini mission to Saturn and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Speaking to students about pursuing careers in space has been a constant throughout her career and she has been grateful to share her message through features by PBS SciGirls, Nike, Lego, and more. At JPL she was awarded the Bruce Murray Award for “inspiring students to engage in STEM, quenching their thirst for knowledge, and sparking a curiosity greater than the stars in the sky.” When she isn't on-call to operate robots in space, you can find her exploring her new home in Japan and doing outreach for communities traditionally underrepresented in STEM.

Andrea Bandelli

Andrea Bandelli is an international consultant and advisor in the field of science communication and public engagement with science. In his career spanning 25 years he has worked for several public and private organisations, including science museums, government organisations and universities across Europe, USA, South Africa and Brazil, leading some of the most innovative projects on science, art, democracy and public participation. He is a member of the board of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, of the scientific board of Universcience in Paris, and of the Expert Network of the World Economic Forum. He has published 2 books and several academic and popular articles on public engagement with science and technology.

Heather Berlin

Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NY. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the goal of developing novel treatments. She’s also interested in the neural basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. A passionate science communicator, she hosts the Nova series Your Brain, and hosted shows on Discovery Channel and PBS. She makes regular appearances on StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and has appeared on the BBC, History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, and TEDx, and was featured in the documentary Bill Nye: Science Guy. Dr. Berlin co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Impulse Control. Berlin received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, and Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and trained in clinical neuropsychology at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Department of Neurological Surgery. She’s a visiting scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and was a Visiting Professor at Vassar College, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology/University of Zurich, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Siri Carpenter

Siri Carpenter is an award-winning journalist and is co-founder, executive director, and editor-in-chief of The Open Notebook, a non-profit organization widely regarded as a leading source of training and educational materials for journalists who cover science. She is also the editor of the book The Craft of Science Writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Science, Discover, Scientific American, Science News, bioGraphic, and other publications. She is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers and was the 2023 winner of the Online News Association’s Community Award. She has a Ph.D. in social psychology from Yale University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jia-Rui Cook

Jia-Rui Cook is a writer, editor, and producer in Los Angeles. Once a staff writer at the L.A. Times, an editor at Zócalo Public Square, and the news events and projects lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she is currently a senior communications officer at the California Wellness Foundation. Jia-Rui’s poetry has recently appeared in Alta Journal, Hunger Mountain Review, Only Poems, and Puerto del Sol, among other outlets.

Jordan Ellenberg

Professor of Mathematics at UW-Maidson, author of HOW NOT TO BE WRONG and SHAPE.

Mary Flanagan

Mary Flanagan is an award-winning writer, designer, and artist involved in transdisciplinary research. She's the author of 7 books with MIT Press on design, feminism, digital culture and games. She is a distinguished professor at Dartmouth College and an affiliate of Film, Media, and environmental studies programs.

Adam K Fontecchio

Dr. Adam Fontecchio is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Drexel University, and is the inaugural Director of the Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning Excellence (CASTLE), and currently serves as National Director for the national Center for Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL). He has held leadership positions including Vice-Dean of the Graduate College at Drexel University, Vice-Chair of the IEEE Philadelphia Section, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering at Drexel University. His research focuses on the area of nanophotonics. He has served as PI or Co-PI on >60 funded grants with >$33M in sponsored research or foundation funding, publication of >130 peer-reviewed articles, and 27 patents. These metrics include both technical research and educational research/programs. Dr. Fontecchio was selected for the 2015 Delaware Valley Engineer of the Year, the 2022 Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the 2021 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Benjamin Garver Lamme Award. He is also the recipient of a NASA New Investigator Award, the Drexel Graduate Student Association Outstanding Mentor Award, the Drexel University ECE Outstanding Research Achievement Award and the International Liquid Crystal Society Multimedia Prize.

Jac Goldstein

Dr. Jac Goldstein (she/her) is the Instructional Designer for the MIT School of Engineering Communication Lab, where she trains graduate engineers to serve as communication coaches for their peers. She focuses on strategic and inclusive communication to support scientific achievement and foster scientific identity. Dr. Goldstein is a co-founder of SciCommBites, a Science Bites blog dedicated to digesting the latest research on science communication. She has led training workshops for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Science Communication Trainers Network, SciCommCon, and the Inclusive SciComm Symposium. Dr. Goldstein holds a PhD in Astronomy, with a minor in Life Sciences Communication, from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She holds a BS in Physics from the University of California Santa Cruz.

Katelyn K Jetelina

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina is an epidemiologist and scientific communicator. She is the co-founder of Health Trust Initiative, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health, and a Senior Scientific Advisor to several government and non-profit agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, Dr. Jetelina is the publisher of Your Local Epidemiologist- a public health newsletter that “translates” ever-evolving science to the public, reaching over 400 million views in over 133 countries. Dr. Jetelina has received numerous national awards, including recently being named a TIME100 Most Influential Person in Health. Katelyn resides with her husband and two toddlers in San Diego, California.

Maggie Koerth

Maggie is an award-winning journalist with 20 years of experience writing and editing articles about science and society. Her work has covered a wide variety of scientific fields, ranging from high-energy physics to sociology. Maggie also has extensive experience as a speaker and media trainer.

Kara L Law

Dr. Kara Lavender Law is Research Professor of Oceanography at Sea Education Association (SEA; Woods Hole, MA), studying the sources, distribution, transformation and fate of plastic debris in the ocean. Trained as a physical oceanographer, her research interests include the sources of plastic debris to the marine environment, understanding how ocean physics determines the distribution of plastic and other marine debris, and the degradation and ultimate fate of different plastic materials in the ocean.

Deborah Nelson

Deb is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist based at the University of Maryland, home of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. She co-authored a series at The Seattle Times that won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and was project editor on Pulitzer-winning series at the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Since joining academe, she has co-authored series on climate change, superbugs, housing, medicine and environment for Reuters that received numerous awards, including from the National Academies of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Overseas Press Club, Scripps Howard Foundation, Sidney Hillman Foundation, John B. Oakes, Society of Professional Journalists, White House Correspondents' Association, National Press Club and others.

Joe Palca

Joe Palca has been a science communicator for nearly four decades. From 1992-2022 he was a science correspondent for NPR, National Public Radio. Prior to that he worked for the news sections of Science and Nature. He also worked as a television producer. He came to journalism from a science background, having received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz where he worked on human sleep physiology. Palca has covered a range of science topics — everything from biomedical research to astronomy. He is founder of the NPR Scicommers program, a collective of science communicators. Palca has won numerous awards, several of which came with attractive certificates. In 2019, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. With Flora Lichtman, Palca is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011).

Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz is a Professor and the Vera Rubin Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). After studying at the University of Cambridge, he was the John Bahcall Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since joining the UCSC faculty in 2007, Ramirez-Ruiz has won a number of awards for his research, including a Packard Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard, the Niels Bohr Professorship from the Danish National Research Foundation, the HEAD Mid-Career Prize from the AAS and the Bouchet Award and the Dwight Nicholson Medal from the American Physical Society. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Czerne Reid

Czerne M. Reid, PhD, FAAAS, is an instructional associate professor in the University of Florida College of Medicine, and an affiliate associate professor in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of science (AAAS), cited for distinguished contributions to the communication of science. She co-organized a National Academy of Sciences colloquium on The Science of Science Communication: Misinformation about science in the public sphere, and served as co-editor of a related special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Dr. Reid is the founder of the Science Writers Mentor Academy, a member of the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW), and a member of the steering committee of the AAAS Section on General Interest in Science and Engineering. She earned a PhD in environmental chemistry at Emory University, and a graduate certificate in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her bachelor's degree in chemistry is from the University of the West Indies, Mona, in her native Jamaica.

Thomas C Skalak

Tom Skalak is Senior Advisor at the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, which makes philanthropic investments in science, social justice, and the arts with a vision to produce transformative impact on societal well-being. Biomedical science and human performance are major directions. Tom is also Vice President for Research Emeritus at the University of Virginia, was a resident artist at the Djerassi Resident Artists program and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Monique Verdin

Monique Verdin is an artist, citizen of the Houma Nation and primary steward of the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, facilitating community-built record-making, experiential education, research, and site activations celebrating the diversity of coastal communities and native ecologies present in south Louisiana. She supports the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo network of Indigenous gardeners as the WECAN Gulf South food sovereignty coordinator. Monique co-stewards Nanih Bvlbancha, an earthen mound in New Orleans, co-founded Bvlbancha Liberation Radio and is a Gulf South Open School collaborator.

Dan C Vergano

Dan Vergano is senior opinion editor at Scientific American. He was previously a science reporter and editor at Grid News, BuzzFeed News, National Geographic and USA Today. He is chair of the New Horizons committee for the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

Now Accepting Applications

Deadline: April 3rd, 2026

Submissions are being accepted for the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications, given by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in partnership with Schmidt Sciences.

These $20,000 and $40,000 awards honor exceptional science communicators, journalists, and research scientists who have developed creative, original work in 2025 that makes science, engineering, and/or medicine accessible and engaging for general audiences. In total, 24 awards will be given, totaling $640,000.

Entries are accepted in the following subcategories:

9 Awards for Research Scientists will focus on three subcategories: graduate student researchers, early-career researchers , and later-career researchers.
9 Awards for Science Journalists will focus on three subcategories: local/regional journalists, early-career journalists, and freelance journalists.
6 Awards for Science Communicators will focus on two subcategories: independent communicators and organizational communicators.

Apply Now | Learn If You’re Eligible

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National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications

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Meet our recent awardees

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