Michael Short, head of an MIT lab that bears his name, visits the Knight Science Journalism program to talk about the problems besetting an industry that generates most of the U.S.’s clean power. They’re manageable, he says, if you break them into five-year chunks.
This Year’s Fellows: Sujata Gupta
Finding innovative ways of communicating science by embedding scientific concepts in children’s stories — and using multimedia tools to add an online dimension.
Book Ideas Wanted: A Visit From MIT Press
Three editors join 10 fellows (including some aspiring authors) for a lively two-hour conversation, ranging from what makes a best-seller to the most memorable book proposals to the future of the e-book publishing industry.
Power On! Help for Puerto Rico, With a Hand From KSJ
To help hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico regain safe drinking water and electricity, the MIT D-Lab recently volunteered in a project to build solar-paneled trailers with purification and charging systems. One of the volunteers was Teresa Carr, a 2017-18 Knight Science Journalism fellow.
This Year’s Fellows: Joshua Hatch
A data journalist’s job is to convert raw numbers and facts into stories told through graphs, charts, pictures, and diagrams. Equal parts science, art, and journalism, the process can seem obscure to anyone who has never done it. But Hatch says it is simply the application of basic journalism skills to numerical data.
This Year’s Fellows: Rowan Jacobsen
Jacobsen has spent most of his career writing about food, particularly the sustainable food movement. From chocolate to apples to oysters, he has delved into the history and chemistry of what we eat.