Victor K. McElheny, the celebrated journalist and author who founded MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Program more than 40 years ago and served for 15 years as its director, died on July 14 in Lexington, Massachusetts, at the age of 89. He is remembered as a steadfast champion of science journalism who eloquently made the case for the profession’s importance in society and worked tirelessly to help the field — and its practitioners — thrive.
Below, past directors, alumni, and friends of the Knight Science Journalism Program share tributes to McElheny and reflect on his legacy. (For more on McElheny, his life, and his career, see the previous announcement shared by the Knight Science Journalism Program.)
- Boyce Rensberger (KSJ Director, 1998-2008)
- Wade Roush (Interim KSJ Director, 2014-15)
- Deborah Blum (KSJ Director, 2015-2025)
- Usha Lee McFarling (Incoming KSJ Director; KSJ Fellow, ’93)
- Agustín Rayo (Dean, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences)
- Deborah Douglas (Senior Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum)
- MIT Libraries Staff
- Erich Hoyt (Vannevar Bush Fellow, ‘86)
- Ann Gibbons (KSJ Fellow, ’88)
- Barbara Bachtler (KSJ Fellow, ’88)
- Marjorie Mandel Kruvand (KSJ Fellow, ’88)
- Guy Webster (KSJ Fellow, ’89)
- Michela Fontana (KSJ Fellow, ’91)
- Thomas Müller (KSJ Fellow, ‘93)
- Lori Valigra (KSJ Fellow, ’93)
- KSJ Fellowship Class of ‘94 (Douglas Birch, Geoffrey Burchfield, Elizabeth Corcoran, Abe Dane, Christoph Drösser, Deborah Franklin, Etsuko Kiya, Sherry J. Lassiter, Christine Mlot, Gregory A. Mock, David Stipp, and acting director David Ansley)
- Kim Chang Yop (KSJ Fellow, ’96)
- Bill Allen (KSJ Fellow, ’97)
- Vivien Marx (KSJ Fellow, ’98)
- Akin Jimoh (KSJ Fellow ’01):
- Richard Friebe (KSJ Fellow, ‘07)
- Daniela Hirschfeld (KSJ Fellow, ’10)
- Ehsan Masood (KSJ Fellow, ’18)
- Sonali Prasad (KSJ Fellow, ‘20)
- Yarden Michaeli (KSJ Fellow, ‘25)
Boyce Rensberger (KSJ Director, 1998-2008):
I was deeply saddened to learn that Victor has died. He and I went back a long way, years before we discussed his plan to create a program at MIT to upgrade the capabilities of our science journalism colleagues.
Victor and I first met in 1973 when he was hired onto The New York Times to be my replacement while I took a leave to spend a fellowship year in East Africa.
I would say that we hit it off immediately, but I think that was because I was willing to listen patiently to one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. That man could talk. I could listen because Victor really knew his stuff. He could discuss some new scientific controversy and thematically connect it to the War of the Roses. Or maybe it was a parallel to the relations between Churchill and Truman at Potsdam.
When I returned to the paper in 1974, Victor and I resumed our conversations, or should I say that I resumed listening. We became good friends. I fondly remember my wife and I having dinner at Victor and Ruth’s apartment on the top floor of a partially converted warehouse loft in Brooklyn, overlooking the East River and Manhattan. They had been married only about a year, both of them having waited until middle age to marry. I think that’s because it takes a long time to find a good match for exceptional people. Ruth had the right combination of personality, intellect and adoration (to use her own word) for Victor.
What motivated the man professionally was a deep desire that the public understand and appreciate science and technology. And he knew the only way that could happen to people out of school was through science journalists and other science writers creating knowledgeable content for mass media.
When the idea for such a program arose at MIT, the Institute quickly found Victor, and Victor quickly put his persuasive powers to work. The startup funding came from Sloan and Mellon, but Victor knew that more was needed. He went to work on the Knight Foundation, playing on his former employment at a Knight newspaper, the Charlotte Observer. He persuaded the foundation to give endowment-scale money in exchange for naming rights.
Through 15 years Victor built the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships, as it became known, into the world’s premier program for mid-career journalists who cover science, technology, medicine or the environment. When he was ready to move on, he asked me if I would consider replacing him. Symmetry seemed to demand that. After all, he had replaced me at The Times.
Today’s science journalism at serious news organizations is vastly smarter than it was when Victor launched the Knight program, and I believe we can credit that to this extraordinary man.
Wade Roush (Interim KSJ Director, 2014-15):
My talks with Victor feel as if they meld into one lifelong conversation on the broad theme of science and engineering and their power, in wise hands, to improve the human condition. But the encounters were always particular and often random, unfolding in MIT’s Lobby 7 or the E51 lunchroom or at a crowded MIT social event or in his and Ruth’s comfortable, book-lined living room. We’d get to talking about Watt and Boulton’s improvements on the Newcomen engine, or how Crick and Watson shaped biology’s central dogma, or what it was like to report on the Apollo program, or how Edwin Land invented the SX-70 camera, and suddenly an hour or two would have gone by. Victor’s knowledge wasn’t just voluminous and seemingly eidetic — it was integrated. He saw the lessons in Elizabeth I’s leadership style for today’s makers of industrial and foreign policy. He understood how FDR’s radio chats about the course of the war (which he heard live) amounted to a master class in the communication of complex subjects. His disdain for idlers, opportunists, and dissemblers was unsparing, and I think he believed that humanity, at its best, was engaged in a deadly serious, centuries-long struggle to end war, poverty, and disease, and beat back the forces of ignorance — a struggle in which journalists and other truth-tellers had a critical role to play. He approached life with a joy, generosity, and determination that never failed to inspire. I will miss him dearly.
“Today’s science journalism at serious news organizations is vastly smarter than it was when Victor launched the Knight program, and I believe we can credit that to this extraordinary man.” — Boyce Rensberger
Deborah Blum (KSJ Director, 2015-2025):
Victor was a remarkable science journalist and author, and a wonderful person. In a prolific career that saw him work at The Charlotte Observer, Science, and The New York Times, and write biographies of scientific luminaries from Edwin Land to James Watson, he still found time in 1983 to create the Knight Science Journalism Program, to fight for it, find funding for it, and build it into what it is today – the best science journalism fellowship in the world.
His love for the program was deep, strong and generous. He worked to support all the directors who followed him, including me. And I should note that during my tenure, when I came up with idea of a KSJ award for local and regional science journalism, he was quick to not only endorse it but — along with his wife, Ruth — to create an endowment to fund it. Thus, the now prestigious Victor K. McElheny Award, which has, for the last six years, honored some of the best local science journalism in the United States. He will be deeply missed.
Usha Lee McFarling (Incoming KSJ Director; KSJ Fellow, ’93):
Victor was the director of the Knight Science Fellowship when I was a fellow, so this is a devastating loss for me personally — but it’s also a huge loss for the entire field of science journalism. Victor touched so many lives in his long and storied career. And he wasn’t done! Even though he was in his 90s, Victor was bubbling over with ideas on how to keep the fellowship program he founded more than 40 years ago powerful and relevant. I’m grateful I was able to connect with him these last weeks as I prepare to take over as director, and while I’ll no longer have his direct counsel, his brilliance, work ethic, and thoughtfulness will continue to inspire me.
Agustín Rayo (Dean, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences):
Victor was a transformational figure for MIT. He never ceased to impress me. He had an extraordinary understanding of the ways in which science and technology shape society, of the ways in which society has shaped MIT, and of the ways in which MIT can shape the world. I will miss him dearly.
“It was like he made it his business to be generous, to open doors, and expose us to a much bigger world than we could have imagined when we had started the fellowship.” — Erich Hoyt
Deborah Douglas (Senior Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum):
Just recently, I had to temporarily move two boxes of old cameras and film, a gift from Victor McElheny several years ago when I was immersing myself in all things Polaroid to better understand the MIT Museum’s stupendous new Polaroid Company Collection. When he made the offer, Victor understood that with 10,000 plus artifacts, the museum didn’t need any more cameras for exhibition, but he delighted in the prospect that his gift would allow hundreds of visitors to have the opportunity to do something even more special: have a hands-on encounter with one of the most remarkable inventions of the 20th century. Victor was not only a remarkable journalist and entrepreneur, but he was also an outstanding educator. He liked nothing better than seeing someone gain a different perspective and learn something new.
Though I’ve known him for much longer, for the past 15 years, Victor has been my go-to source for understanding Polaroid. Notes from long—very long! —lunch time conversations filled pages of my notebook. Victor lent me (well, technically, the MIT Museum) several dozen boxes of meticulously organized research files for his book on Edwin Land, which became key to my own exhibition research. He gave several inspiring talks to the museum’s visitors including for the dedication of the American Chemical Society’s Historical Chemical Landmark honoring Polaroid in 2015 and as part of series for our 2019 exhibition “The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Science.” He gave still more talks (and autographed copies of his Land biography) at special Polaroid Days at the museum. Most notably, he gave generously of his time and expertise to every journalist, author, and student I referred his way.
Victor opened his book about Edwin Land with this assertion: “Edwin Land’s mind was an engine of many cylinders.” It’s an apt description for Victor’s mind. For all who knew and admired Victor, it was impossible not to be impressed by his erudition, his synthetic and creative approach to learning, and his vigorous and ebullient spirit. I was lucky to have known Victor and remain privileged to share his story every time someone plays with one of his old Polaroid cameras. His is a remarkable legacy of words and deeds. Like all who knew Victor (and his amazing wife Ruth) I will miss him greatly.
MIT Libraries Staff:
We in the MIT Libraries were all deeply saddened to hear of Victor’s recent passing. He was a friend of the Libraries and an ardent user of our collections. He approached us at the ripe young age of 80 to offer his own collection of science-related newspaper and magazine articles, news releases, and notes that he collected over 60 years. In total, Victor gave us more than 250 boxes of materials in 2012, and those materials have been an important part of our Distinctive Collections since then. His legacy of science journalism will live on for researchers in perpetuity and we couldn’t be more grateful for his generosity and his friendship.
Erich Hoyt (Vannevar Bush Fellow, ‘86):
Victor influenced two and now going on three generations of science journalists — an amazing legacy. Chief among Victor’s attributes was the breadth of his knowledge about scientists, ideas, institutions, important scientific and technological developments and how they affected society. One member of our year, Dick Thompson, then from Time Magazine, gave him the nickname “the Vic2000”. Remember this was 1985-86, long before Google, and “Vic2000” just sounded like a futuristic supercomputer. We would often say to each other “Let’s ask the Vic 2000.” Often there was an immediate answer.
In our 3rd year of the then Vannevar Bush Fellowships, he was so focused on finding an endowment for the fellowships. We could see that this could be a good idea, in the abstract, but we didn’t realize how absolutely determined he was to make it happen, and how important it would become.
He had amazing equanimity. I don’t think it was an effort or an affectation. It was just the way he was. He was positive, enthusiastic every day. I can’t remember in the day to day ever seeing him depressed. For that matter, rarely did we see him upset over anything.
He could delight sometimes in being a gossip about scientific battles, but mainly as being of academic interest. He wanted to expose us to a wide range of academics, thinkers, doers, at MIT and Harvard and those who might be passing through, many of them his previous interview subjects. He loved bringing all of us in tow to answer questions or hosting someone at our offices. He loved being the master of ceremonies and holding out to ask one or other question during the session.
I treasured our occasional lunches together in the 3 years I spent in Cambridge after the Fellowship. He was someone to whom you could present a new idea or book project, get feedback, new directions and usually unexpected contacts. Victor was so generous to all of us. It was like he made it his business to be generous, to open doors, and expose us to a much bigger world than we could have imagined when we had started the fellowship. That was certainly true in my case.
Ann Gibbons (Vannevar Bush Fellow, ’88):
Vic McElheny was one of my most significant mentors, and his support and the fellowship changed my life in amazing ways.
I was in the fifth year of what was then called the Vannevar Bush fellowship, which was a year that was a catalyst for many positive changes in my life, including a class in human evolution that gave me an entirely new focus as a science writer early in my career. The fellowship also gave me a boost in confidence to chase my dreams, including applying for a job Vic told me about at Science. He mentioned my name to the former editor of Science, who hired me to write about human evolution.
Before that, he also gave me great advice when I was the science writer at a newspaper in California and concerned that I needed an editor with higher standards. He told me to manage myself, and to come up with a list of goals and story ideas each year that I shared with my editors — and especially to cherry-pick ideas for stories that I’d remember in five years. I could write the stories my editors wanted, but I should always focus on what I needed to do to become a better writer and to produce the work I’d be proud of later. It is the single most important career advice I’ve ever been given and advice I pass on to my students when I teach science writing.
Beyond that, I also deeply appreciated his friendship and Ruth’s. They were warm, welcoming, and important people in my life at a time of great change, both professionally and personally. I already miss them.
“The enthusiasm shimmered off him like heat from a turbojet. To be in his presence was to be constantly reminded that the world with science is an utterly different place than it would have been without it.” — KSJ Class of ’94
Barbara Bachtler (KSJ Fellow, ’88):
Victor has been a phenomenon. He had a brilliant mind, was enormously knowledgeable in so many fields of science and history. It was a lot of fun to listen to him, to talk to him. He was kind, open, supportive and always good-humored. I have so many fond memories of my time on the Knight Science Journalism Program and of course of Victor and his wife Ruth. They had been such a wonderful team. This era has now ended. I am very sad
Marjorie Mandel Kruvand (KSJ Fellow, ’88):
Victor was an indefatigable force for science journalism. This included a deep interest in and support for the community of former Knight fellows. Long after my fellowship, which was one of the most stimulating experiences of my life, Victor provided encouragement, ideas and much-appreciated advice no matter how many twists and turns occurred in my career in journalism, science communication, academic research and teaching.
Guy Webster (KSJ Fellow, ’89):
In 1988, when Victor said the other fellows would be among the most important people I’d meet during the fellowship year, I may have been dubious, with all the Nobelists and world experts he’d lined up. But sure enough, the contacts with other Knights from my own year and other years have been lasting treasure. Victor created a network important to the profession of science writing, thus to the public’s science literacy.
Michela Fontana (KSJ Fellow ’91):
I remember when I first met Victor in Italy for the Knight Science interview. I liked his approach and the way he interacted with me as a potential candidate. I was accepted and KSJ has been a wonderful experience, which enriched enourmously my professional life. Victor was a fantastic science journalist and science promoter and a wonderful human being, together with Ruth. He was inspirational and motivating. He had always a positive and constructive attitude.
Thank you Victor, rest in peace with Ruth, and you will always be part of my nicest and fulfilling memories .
Thomas Müller (KSJ Fellow, ‘93):
I was always impressed by Victor’s vast knowledge of almost everything, but also by his warmth and wit. I had the great privilege of being accepted by him for a Knight Fellowship. The year at MIT widened my horizons and advanced my career as a science journalist. I will always be grateful to have known him.
Lori Valigra (KSJ Fellow, ’93):
I first spent one-on-one time with Victor after I returned to the U.S. from a five-year posting in Japan. We went to the Miracle of Science Bar & Grill in Cambridge for lunch. From what I had heard about him, I expected to be regaled with tales about science, stories he broke and famous people he had met. The menu written on the periodic table on the wall underscored the theme of science.
Instead, he provided a very detailed layout of Cambridge neighborhoods and where it might be best for me to settle. His wife, Ruth, later added to Victor’s observations at the annual welcome BBQ they held in their west Cambridge backyard.
That was the start of an academic year filled with opportunities for new knowledge and acquaintances, with Victor nudging me and other fellows to take full advantage of all the Knight program had to offer.
The year marked my return from Tokyo and the rebuilding of my journalism career in the U.S. It was a time to refresh and push ahead. Victor was always eager to help and direct me to the resources I needed. The Knight experience changed the direction of my career and put me on a path that enriched my life professionally and personally.
I’m grateful to Victor for having the insight to start the fellowship program and having included me among its ranks. He made a big difference in my life and in the careers of many other fellows before and after me.
Many thanks to Victor and Ruth for taking an interest in me and enriching my life.
“He unleashed in me waves of positive thinking, new story ideas, and determination. For years this benefitted me, my editors, and our readers.” — Bill Allen
KSJ Fellowship Class of ‘94 (Douglas Birch, Geoffrey Burchfield, Elizabeth Corcoran, Abe Dane, Christoph Drösser, Deborah Franklin, Etsuko Kiya, Sherry J. Lassiter, Christine Mlot, Gregory A. Mock, David Stipp, and David Ansley, Acting Director):
If you were ever cornered by Victor McElheny at a cocktail party, you know that the public understanding of science and technology was much more than a job to him. The enthusiasm shimmered off him like heat from a turbojet. To be in his presence was to be constantly reminded that the world with science is an utterly different place than it would have been without it … and everyone NEEDED to know. Medicine, sanitation, agriculture, transportation and communication all have been driven by this deceptively simple idea: Scrupulously observe, document, and follow the facts, regardless of your preconceptions or prejudices.
Clearly the current moment cries out for the relentless explanatory energy of people like Victor.
Fortunately, there are legions of them, in part because of the program he built. The Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT has had incredible impact. Working with a tiny team, Victor every year plucked a dozen or so hard-working journalists out of their deadline-driven daily grinds and gave them unfettered access to the vast resources of MIT and Harvard. Just as importantly, the fellowship provided freedom — including, extraordinarily, the support of an actual livable stipend — to mine these riches. For the lucky recipient, it was a Willy Wonka golden ticket, and it’s hard to see how anyone could come away from it unchanged.
It certainly changed those of us in the class of 1994. Our fellowship year came at the exact moment when, with the emergence of the web as a graphical medium, the wider world began to engage with the internet in a way that would in the succeeding years transform our work and upend the organizations we worked for. We got to see it coming from the Athena Cluster along the Infinite Corridor.
Victor was actually less in evidence than usual during our year, because he took leave to work on his biography of Edwin Land, with David Ansley acting ably as his replacement with the assistance of Linda Lowe. Nonetheless, we all felt his presence in ways that built deep affection and respect, whether at seminars, through his voluminous library of story files… or cornered at the occasional cocktail party.
Kim Chang Yop (KSJ Fellow, ’96):
When Victor responded to my message last April, I have never imagined heartbroken loss of him would come early like this. He is kind of my father in a sense of science journalism. He is the same age to my blood father. Because my grandchildren live in Lexington I planned to visit his house in the near future. I wouldn’t forget what he had given me. He is my living legend forever.
Bill Allen (KSJ Fellow, ’97):
Victor once told me a story that pulled me out of despair and helped me right my journalism keel.
I had an indescribably rich year as a 1996-97 KSJ Fellow, coming from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where I was a general science reporter. Just before my return to the newsroom in 1997 one of my editors called to reassign me from the science beat to cover health-care policy. I was bummed. During my time at MIT, I’d gotten all jacked up to go back and cover the heck out of science, technology and environment, having amassed a bucket full of story ideas and methods of approach.
When Victor took me out for the individual end-of-the-fellowship lunch, he immediately understood my situation. After a moment sharing the grief, he spoke of the advantages of “reintroducing” myself to the editors, showing them I could roll up my sleeves and “help in the kitchen” — with class, calm and initiative. He told me how New York Times reporter Harrison Salisbury, who had been called back from Moscow after his Pulitzer-winning work overseas, was reassigned to the Metro desk, not far from where Victor sat. First thing, Salisbury was told, rather ingloriously, to do a story about garbage collection in New York.
Disrespect? Rather than complaining, refusing or allowing his spirit to be subdued, he took it on. With curiosity and tenacity, Salisbury rode the city on the trucks, dug into records, and interviewed a cast of characters high and low that would have shamed Tolstoy. The result was a superlative and impactful series on problems embedded in the municipal system.
Like the skillful teacher Victor was, with this example and accompanying advice, he unleashed in me waves of positive thinking, new story ideas, and determination. For years this benefitted me, my editors, and our readers. Not to mention, eventually, my students.
Thank you, Victor.
“He was encyclopedic in his knowledge about just about anything and always had ideas about how things and people were connected.” — Vivien Marx
Vivien Marx (KSJ Fellow, ’98):
Victor was kind and helpful to me over the years since I first met him. Like so many, I am grateful to have been accepted for an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, which changed my life professionally and personally.
He was supportive of people committing acts of journalism in ways I had never experienced, and it nudged me to grow and find courage to fully explore the fellowship’s opportunities and get ready for my road ahead after the fellowship.
He was encyclopedic in his knowledge about just about anything and always had ideas about how things and people were connected.
After the fellowship, I wrote him now and then to try and work out a current pretzel of some kind I had in my reporting, and he always had things to share that helped me. He had a formidable memory and could track down aspects of science or history at the blink of an eye.
I reached out to him recently to express my sadness about Ruth’s passing. He shared that on WCRB, he had just listened to a replay of a Beethoven and Mozart concert given by Boston Baroque, a group he and Ruth had enjoyed for many decades. And he shared some fun details about its music director and bits about his biography. That was so Victor, as was his closing note: “We do what we do for love.”
He was committed to Ruth, the fellowship, journalism and living life with a passion. I would have wished him more time to share the details of all the things he knew about, but I guess one has to accept people passing — I am not fond of needing to do that. He lived a formidable life and was supportive of journalism and journalists with such steadfast dedication. It’s a joy to remember him and that energy.
Akin Jimoh (KSJ Fellow ’01):
Victor King McElheny has many children, and I count myself as part of the McElheny clan spread across the world through the seeds he planted at the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship.
Beyond the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, Victor planted seeds of curiosity, of purpose, of integrity, of life which have taken root and blossomed across the world, as a standard in every journalist who tells the story of science to help people live, learn, and thrive.
As part of his clan in spirit we should carry forward the mission to illuminate science, not for science’s sake, but to touch lives.
Richard Friebe (KSJ Fellow, ‘07):
When I got the email with the sad news that Victor had passed away, I said those words which, when you get older, you tend to say more and more often, to my wife who was sitting next to me and had noticed the sudden change in my mood:
“Somebody died.”
Then I said: “The founding director of the Knight Fellowships.”
Then I said: “Without him, we would never have met.”
My wife and I got to know each other during the fellowship, having been introduced by the wife of another fellow. We would not be together without Victor McElheny, our kids would not be in this world. That is how far Victor’s impact goes for some of us. And I could thank him for it and end with this.
But I’d still like to share one or two actual memories and thoughts.
A picture of him and Ruth remains in my mind: Often when there was a party, maybe at the director’s house, or someone else’s, the two would be sitting somewhere, smiling, in the center of it all somehow, but at the same time humble, quiet, just there. Their preferred place seemed to be the kitchen, ready to enjoy some good food and beverage. Ready to talk, too.
Whenever you met Victor and got into a conversation with him, you could be sure to have his full attention. And when you asked him something, you had to be prepared to get an answer. Small talk was not his thing. He had something to say, and he knew the details, and the people, and the context, and some more, and he was ready to share. I sometimes found myself peeking around for that extra hard drive he may have plugged-in to himself somewhere. If someone ever invents a friendly, humane, non-hallucinating AI, they should call it Victor.
After the fellowship I once asked him, humbly, whether he would consider, if at all possible, and only if he found the time, and if that was not inadequate to ask of him, ehem… whether he would consider writing a piece for the magazine I was editing at the time, about an event 50 years ago, one which he had covered as a reporter.
I did not get a yes or no reply. But the next day I had an article in my inbox.
So I can proudly call myself a science editor who has published a Victor McElheny piece.
I cannot, though, claim to be someone who has edited his work. Because the piece did not require any editing.
One more thing: It has almost been 20 years since I was a Knight Fellow. Already then, Victor, who had retired from the directorship several years before, could not be called a healthy and fit man in his early seventies. But, as with so many developments in science and technology, even his health issues and how to deal with them seemed to be, to a good part, fundamentally something interesting to him, an exciting challenge, one to be faced with reason and brains. He embraced what medical technology and pharmacy could do for him, understood it, made it work for himself. There is maybe no one to whom the famous quote, attributed to the physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, fits better than to him: “Longevity is having a chronic disease and taking care of it.”
But the way he was able to take care of it is, of course, also a reminder to all of us that while those possibilities to help people live productively and without too much suffering to a ripe old age are there, they very often are not available.
Getting the Knight Fellowships into this world was somehow something along similar lines: Victor saw a chronic and worsening problem regarding the relationship between the increasing importance of science in and for free societies on the one hand and its coverage in the media on the other. The fellowships were his contribution to “taking care of it.”
This is a big part of his legacy. All of us who profited from it as fellows share some responsibility to take care of it, too.
“Victor planted seeds of curiosity, of purpose, of integrity, of life which have taken root and blossomed across the world, as a standard in every journalist who tells the story of science to help people live, learn, and thrive.” — Akin Jimoh
Daniela Hirschfeld (KSJ Fellow, ’10):
In tribute to Victor K. McElheny, I honor a visionary whobelieved deeply in the transformative power of science journalism. Through the fellowship he created, Victor opened doors for journalists around the world, giving us an unforgettable opportunity for training and growth. His legacy lives on in every science story we write to make science accessible and meaningful for all.
Ehsan Masood (KSJ Fellow ’18):
I first met Victor at the welcome party for my KSJ class (2017/18) and he asked me about my project. I explained that I was searching for scientists who had lived through the McCarthy period, and that one person I was keen to talk to was the Harvard psychologist Leon Kamin. As a young researcher, Kamin had got into hot water over his left-wing activities, endured a gruelling trial and eventually had to leave the U.S. for a time when he became unemployable in U.S. academia.
I could see that Victor was listening intently to what I was saying, then told me to make an appointment to see him at his house. He explained that he had been assigned the McCarthy beat shortly after joining the editorial staff at The Harvard Crimson as an undergraduate in 1955 and that his first story (or one of his first stories) was to cover Kamin’s trial in Boston. Victor’s memory of the trial and his reporting was as if it was only yesterday. I later had several sittings with Kamin (shortly before he passed away) and Victor also helped me to corroborate aspects of Kamin’s account.
I recall Victor saying that the Kamin trial dominated his year at Harvard so much so, that he asked to defer his classes so he could continue to report on it (his editor then was David Halberstam) and that this was among the influences that got him into science journalism.
For me, meeting Victor meant that I got my first project-related interview within the first couple of hours of my first official day as a KSJ Fellow!
Sonali Prasad (KSJ Fellow, ‘20):
Today, I celebrate Victor’s care and dedication to our community. His legacy lives on in science journalists across the world. I feel deeply grateful to have benefited from his vision as part of the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program, and I wish that the good work carries on. May he and Ruth rest well.
Yarden Michaeli (KSJ Fellow, ‘25):
Victor was a special human being, and I feel lucky I had a chance to know him. He was generous, kind, knowledgeable and inspiring. I’ll forever be grateful for the KSJ program he created, and everything else he did in order to improve the lives of so many, out of a genuine believe in the goodness of humankind.
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