Nineteen journalists awarded grants to attend ScienceWriters2024

Seven journalists working across the United States have been selected to receive CASW New Horizons Travel Fellowships to support their participation in ScienceWriters2024, taking place in Raleigh, N.C. Nov. 8-11. Each will receive up to $1,200 in travel funds, thanks to generous support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Jess McAllen is a staff writer at The Baffler, where she covers the United States healthcare system, with a focus on mental health and advancements in care for endometriosis. She is the recipient of a 2019 Peter M. Acland Foundation Fellowship.

Anastasiia Carrier is the public health and safety reporter at Charlottesville Tomorrow, a nonprofit news organization in Charlottesville, Va., where she’s covered science and health issues that impact her local community, such as an E. coli outbreak at a Memorial Day celebration.

Vanesa de la Cruz Pavas is a science communicator and environmental journalist with the Hitchcock Project for Visualizing Science at the University of Nevada, Reno. She previously led science coverage at the national newspaper El Colombiano in Medellín, Colombia.

Tanvi Dutta Gupta is an editorial fellow at the nonprofit Bay Nature Magazine in Berkeley, Calif. She has an undergraduate degree in biology and a master’s degree in Earth systems from Stanford University.

Marlowe Starling is a freelance environmental journalist in New York City. She is a contributing writer to Mongabay and The Marjorie, an independent environmental news outlet in Florida.

Shawna Williams is a freelance editor and writer for publications including BioSpace, Inside Precision Medicine, and Science News Explores. She is a past president of the D.C. Science Writers Association.

Stephanie Wolf is a Denver-based independent journalist and audio producer covering issues at the intersection of healthcare and policy. She was a 2023 Fund for Investigative Journalism seed grant recipient.

Workshop Fellows

An additional 12 journalists won fellowships to attend the conference as well as the Nov. 8 workshop, “Living and Working on a Hot Planet: Reporting on Climate Change and Human Health.”

Saugat Bolakhe is a New York-based freelance science journalist from Nepal whose work has appeared in Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist, Quanta, Eos, Discover, Knowable and other publications.

Leah Borts-Kuperman is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker in Northern Ontario, Canada, who focuses on stories at the intersection of environment, agriculture, and public interest.

Ana Raquel Bueno joined Univision 45, based in Houston, as environmental reporter in 2022 after reporting from Veracruz, Mexico, as a radio and television host, anchor, reporter and producer.

Virginia Gewin is a freelance journalist and current Nova Institute for Health media fellow covering air quality, climate change, and public health for outlets including Scientific American, Vox, Grist, Bloomberg, Nature, and Science.

Gina Jiménez is a staff writer for Public Health Watch based in New York City. She earned has been a fellow and intern with Inside Climate News, Scientific American, and The Transmitter.

Maya L. Kapoor is a California-based freelance journalist covering climate change, environmental justice, and biodiversity. You can find her work in Grist, Harpers, High Country News, Undark, and elsewhere. Previously, she directed the journalism minor at NC State University. Before that she was an editor at High Country News.

Julian Nowogrodski, a Boston-based freelance journalist who has written about biomedicine and life science for The New York Times, Slate, Nature, National Geographic and many other publications.

Rosalia Omungo is a Kenyan freelance environmental journalist who serves as secretary and chief executive officer of the Kenya Editors’ Guild. Omungo earned international awards for her work as a reporter, manager, and science, environment, and health editor for the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. She has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and chaired the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association.

Helina Selemon is the science reporter for the Blacklight investigative unit at New York Amsterdam News, tasked with covering COVID-19, climate change, gun violence, and other crises. Selemon has worked as a health reporter, multimedia and social media editor, fact checker, and journalism lecturer and coach and has earned a Solutions Journalism Network Award for reporting on extreme heat and gun violence reporting.

Myriam Vidal Valero is a bilingual science, health, and environmental journalist from Mexico City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Nature, Science, El País, Inside Climate News, and many other outlets. She received a 2019 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.

Christian von Preysing-Barry is an Ecuadorian-American documentary producer, broadcast journalist, and wildlife filmmaker who serves as a reporter and fill-in anchor for KRGV-TV in Weslaco, Texas. He is a former National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellow and a journalism and anthropology graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lori Youmshajekian is a freelance science journalist who moved to Yerevan, Armenia after completing her master’s degree with NYU’s SHERP program. Earlier, as a TV and video journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, she wrote and produced videos on COVID-19, climate change, and other topics.