Anna Gibbs awarded Taylor/Blakeslee mentored science journalism project fellowship

Freelance journalist Anna Gibbs has been awarded a Taylor/Blakeslee Mentored Science Journalism Project Fellowship to pursue a feature story about an innovative effort to reverse coastal erosion in the Maldives. She will receive a small grant to support reporting, writing, and pitching her story, as well as mentorship from award-winning freelance science journalist Joshua Sokol.

Gibbs covers the intersection between science and society. Her work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times, and Science News, among other outlets. She received a 2022 Taylor/Blakeslee Graduate Fellowship to attend the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting master’s program at New York University. She also has a bachelor’s in English from Harvard University. Originally from Ipswich, Massachusetts, Anna currently resides in New York City.

Sokol, who is based in Raleigh, N.C., worked as a data analyst for the Hubble Space Telescope before attending the graduate program in science writing at MIT as a 2014 Taylor/Blakeslee Fellow. Since then his stories have appeared in publications including Science, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. His work has been included in the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. His forthcoming book, an exploration of humanity’s relationship with the night sky, will be published by Random House. Sokol received a 2019 Taylor/Blakeslee project fellowship to report a story on infectious disease vectors. The Atlantic published his story in August 2020.

Launched in 2019, the mentored project grant program is designed to enable Fellows to complete independent reporting projects that will help launch their careers, develop project-management and entrepreneurial skills, and make a contribution to science journalism and society. They are funded by the Chicago-based Brinson Foundation, which provides underwriting for the Taylor/Blakeslee Graduate Fellowships.

See all past project fellow recipients here.