Fellowships

Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellowship

Who is Sharon Begley?

Begley, STAT’s senior science writer, was one of the nation’s finest science journalists and was known for her enthusiasm for mentoring and teaching the next generation. She was especially eager to help other women advance in a profession that, when she began as a researcher at Newsweek in 1977, was unwelcoming. She later worked at the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, before joining STAT at its founding in 2015. She was one of the STAT reporters honored as a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting, for their “prescient, expert and accessible coverage” of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her legacy includes her powerful advocacy for people of color, exemplified by a series she wrote in 2016 and 2017 about the neglect by scientists, government funders, drug makers and hospitals of patients with sickle cell disease, who in the U.S. are predominantly Black. This fellowship pays tribute to her outstanding career while paving the way for the next generation of science journalists.

About the Fellowship

The Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellowship combines an educational component through the Knight Science Journalism (KSJ) program and a paid reporting position at STAT, the nation’s must-read health, science, and medicine publication.

The Sharon Begley fellow is based at STAT’s Boston office. At the same time, they participate in KSJ training seminars and fellowship community events, have access to MIT libraries, and are able to audit classes at MIT and Harvard.