2017-18 Taylor/Blakeslee Fellows aim to ‘elevate the public conversation about science’

Five writers with varied backgrounds in crime and business reporting, science and education have been awarded the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing’s prestigious Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowships supporting graduate study in science writing.

The Fellows will receive a $5,000 award for the 2017-18 academic year, bringing to 156 the number of science writers aided by CASW’s graduate fellowships since 1981.

Chosen from a field of 33 outstanding applicants were:

Fatima Husain (pictured above). Husain, who is completing a bachelor’s degree in geology and chemistry at Brown University, began pitching her writing to magazines as a high school student. In college she continued to pursue her interest in writing, serving as science editor for The College Hill Independent, a weekly Providence newspaper coordinated by undergraduates at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. Involvement in climate research sparked Husain’s concern about sensational, agenda-driven writing and misinformation. She will attend the MIT graduate program in science writing and looks forward to getting lab experience in an unfamiliar field.

Heather Mongilio (@HMongilio) completed her bachelor’s degree in journalism and psychology at American University in 2015 and went to work covering crime and courts for the Carroll County Times in Maryland. Having taken a course in health and environmental reporting, she found herself looking for ways to incorporate medicine and science into her reporting. Her dream job is as a science or medical reporter with a major daily. She will also enter the MIT graduate program in science writing and hopes to study neuroscience while at MIT.

Jeremy Colin Rehm (@jrehm_sci) earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Brigham Young University and pursued graduate studies in ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, where he is completing a master’s degree. His science studies have taken him into the western states and to Panama and Belize, and his involvement in science education has taken him into the communities around campuses and as far afield as Tanzania. Along the way, he has captured science in context through essays, profiles, blogging and multimedia productions and even a planetary science book written as a holiday gift for his family. Rehm will polish his skill at writing for the general public by attending the science communication graduate program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Elizabeth Whitman (@elizabethwhitty) has reported from the United Nations and written feature stories about Syrian refugees, public health, medicine, climate change and women’s rights from the Middle East. She currently reports on the health care industry. In March, her writing for Modern Healthcare was recognized with the Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Range of Work by a Single Author. A 2011 history graduate of Columbia University, she is heading back to Columbia for a master’s degree in science journalism. In her fellowship application, Whitman wrote: “Now is a critical time for elevating the public conversation about science…. Journalists share the responsibility for fostering an informed discussion of what we know and how we know it, and for bringing the public into this conversation through ethical, accurate writing about scientific findings and developments.”

After completing a bachelor’s degree in physics at Brown, Charles Wood (@walkingthedot) headed for Korea, Mozambique and Japan as a teacher of English and physics. Landing afterward at the Christian Science Monitor as an intern, he found that writing about science combined his passion for explaining with his love of science. He will join the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) at New York University. “I hope to become a skilled science journalist who can acknowledge the context surrounding each new development,” he explained in his application, “while conveying to the public a nuanced but engaging picture of what’s going on in the lab or out in the field.”

CASW’s graduate fellowships are underwritten by a grant from The Brinson Foundation, a Chicago-based philanthropic organization. They honor the late Rennie Taylor and Alton Blakeslee, science writer and science editor respectively for the Associated Press. More information may be found on this page.