It’s going to be a year of exciting changes here at the Knight Science Journalism program—and we’d like you to be part of that! Starting today, the application system is open for the 2015-16 Fellowship year. You can read all about the Fellowships and how to apply here, and you can start working on your application here.
Since 1983, the KSJ Fellowship program has provided more than 320 journalists from around the globe with an opportunity to study, gain perspective and contacts, and explore the stimulating intellectual environment of Cambridge.
The 2015-16 year will offer those same opportunities, but it also will include some important firsts:
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Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum, a New York Times health blogger and author of the best-selling book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, arrives as Director of Knight Science Journalism at MIT in July. It’ll be the first time the program has had a woman journalist at the helm.
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In October, MIT will host ScienceWriters2015, the annual joint meeting of the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. It’s the first time this meeting, which brings together hundreds of science and technology writers from around the country, has come to MIT. The Knight program is the local organizer.
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In 2015-16, for the first time, we will add a formal project option to the Fellowship experience. Fellows will be encouraged (but not required) to propose and pursue a storytelling project that suits their particular interests and skills. One goal is to help Fellows learn and test new storytelling ideas in a setting where experimentation is encouraged. See this KSJ blog post for more details.
We strongly encourage journalists from both inside and outside the United States to apply for the Fellowship. It’s obviously crucial that citizens and consumers in every country have access to accurate, compelling science, health, environmental, and technology news. Because international Fellows routinely make up one-third to one-half of our class, there’s an exciting global flair to the Fellowship experience that reflects the diversity of talents, styles, and regional journalistic concerns around the world.
One piece of advice for potential applicants. We require letters of recommendation from three people familiar with your work. Those letters must be submitted directly by your recommenders, using our online system, by midnight on February 28—the same time that the rest of your application materials are due. So if you are thinking about applying for a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship position, a first priority should be to secure three recommenders and send them the submission instructions. If you wait until late February to recruit your recommenders, they may not have time to complete the process. We will not consider applications that are still incomplete as midnight, February 28.
Apply for the Fellowship program here. And wherever your career path takes you, we wish you a bright and successful 2015.
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