News Archive

Knight Science Journalism at MIT has selected twelve journalists working in six countries for its 31st class of Fellows. The journalists will study science, health, environment and technology at MIT during the academic year 2013–14.

Catalina Arevalo is an environment correspondent for the leading Spanish language news agency, EFE, based in Madrid, Spain.

Aleszu Bajak is a freelance journalist and founder of LatinAmericanScience.org, a weekly bilingual digest of science news out of Central and South America.

Julia Belluz is the senior editor at The Medical Post, a contributing writer at Maclean’s magazine, and creator of the blog Science-ish, based in Toronto, Canada.

Nick Clark is a Doha, Qatar-based anchor/correspondent with Al Jazeera English.

Rachel Ehrenberg is an interdisciplinary sciences/chemistry writer, with Science News, based in Washington, DC.

Mark Harris is a freelance writer for The Economist and The Sunday Times, among others, and a contributing editor at IEEE Spectrum. He is based in Seattle, WA.

Lynda Mapes of Seattle, WA is a staff writer at the Seattle Times, specializing in natural history, environmental topics and native cultures.

Jason Palmer is a science and technology reporter with BBC News, based in London.

Susan Phillips is an energy reporter and multi-media journalist with StateImpactPennsylvania, a joint project of NPR/WHYY/witf.

Jonathan Sahula is a freelance film and video editor and producer who frequently works for PBS’s NOVA. He is based in Boston, MA.

Yves Sciama is a freelance journalist from Grenoble, France. His work has appeared in Science et Vie, La Recherche, and Le Monde.

Tom Zeller is a senior reporter with the Huffington Post, primarily covering energy and the environment.

The new Knights were chosen by a committee composed of Philip J. Hilts, director, Knight Science Journalism at MIT; Charles Petit, science writer and KSJ Tracker; Susan Moran, freelance journalist; Joyce Murdoch, former Washington Post editor and reporter; and John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. 

Photo: Karen Klinger, seated second from left, with the 1985-86 Vannevar Bush fellows.

Karen M. Klinger was a career journalist and one of the program's earliest alumni. Klinger was selected for the 1985-86 Vannevar Bush fellowship -- the precursor to the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship. She died in Chicago on Dec. 16, 2012, after a battle with cancer.

Klinger travelled widely during her early career with the San Jose Mercury News and Agence France Presse. After her fellowship at MIT, she settled in Cambridge and expanded her work covering local issues. In 2012, she co-produced an award-winning video for Cambridge Community Television on the restoration of public art at Kendall Station.

1989-90 Knight Fellow Jos van den Broek has published a new textbook on visual communication: "Visual Language -- Perspectives for Both Makers and Users." For more information, please visit: http://www.elevenpub.com/social-sciences/catalogus/visual-language-1

This year the Knight Fellowships will bring in the usual number of Fellows to study at MIT and Harvard, but will also bring in a thirteenth Fellow, this one to carry out a project and produce a product rather than to study. We hope to have a Project Fellow every year into the future. In our first, experimental year, the Project Fellow will be Eli Kintisch.

A contributing correspondent for Science magazine, Kintisch will be working on a project called Bay in Flux to develop interactive apps exploring how climate change is impacting the Narragansett Bay. The year-long effort will begin with a studio class at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) that Kintisch will coteach with two RISD professors which will explore the changing Bay and innovate new means of telling its story with tablet computers. Kintisch will then coordinate the development of content and help develop the design of a working prototype tablet app aimed for May 2013 release. The project is supported by Knight Science Journalism at MIT, RISD and the National Science Foundation.

Since dispersing at the close of their fellowship year at MIT, the 1993-94 Fellows have nearly all kept in close touch with each other as their lives, careers and families have evolved. These connections have included photos and news shared in a Facebook group, frequent visits when two Fellows find themselves in the same city, wedding receptions, and most significantly a regular series of reunions. Every other summer since leaving MIT, a majority of the group has gathered for a few days in a series of colorful locales: the Outer Banks, Cape Cod, Lake Tahoe, the Rockies, Quebec City, Moscow, and Tuscany.

The largest reunion took place over the July 4, 2012, holiday, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Ten of the 11 former fellows and the acting director that year, David Ansley (who also organized the reunion), made it, together with spouses, partners and children, adding up to a group of 30. They spent several days together, hiking the rainforest and beaches, cooking huge meals, remembering the year at MIT and talking about current events and journalistic challenges. Attendees came from Australia, Germany, California, Wisconsin, Washington and the East Coast.

Among the highlights was a field seminar -- a tidepool walk at Salt Creek County Park, led by Ansley's daughter Kaza, who was 4 during the Fellowship year but now has a marine biology degree. During that beach trip, the Fellows re-enacted their official fellowship photograph, borrowing a weathered drift log in place of MIT campus sculpture. The only two people missing from the new photo are fellow Etsuko Furukori (whom the group has lost contact with), and former administrative assistant Linda Lowe.

-- David Ansley, Acting Director, 93-94

Judith Horstman (Bush, 1986-87) has another new book: The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain. Published in June by Josssy-Bass, it has blurbs from Dr. Oz, Dan Goleman and Marc Agronin who calls it "a must read for all aging brains!" It's a realistic but encouraging overview of normal aging, a sobering look at what can go wrong, and the latest in what neuroscience is finding might help your brain stay healthy longer. Horstman says the challenge of writing four brain books in four years is helping keep her own aging brain sharp. For more see: www.judithhorstman.com or her Amazon Author page: http://amzn.to/JTCZXf.

Scientific American recently published The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain: The Neuroscience of How, When, Why and Who We Love, by Judith Horstman. This is the third book in a series of Scientific American brain books by 1986-87 Bush Fellow, Horstman. To find out more about this and all her books, visit Judith's web site at www.judithhorstman.com. Judith says a fourth book in the series is on the way!