"Ibby Caputo, a 2014-2015 MIT-Knight Science Journalism Fellow, is a writer and journalist based in Boston. Before her fellowship, Ibby covered health care, transportation and breaking news as a reporter for WGBH’s Boston Public Radio and WGBH TV. Ibby credits her nine months in the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship with giving her the space and […]
"MARCIA BARTUSIAK, ’95
Combining her skills as a journalist with an advanced degree in physics, Marcia Bartusiak has been covering the fields of astronomy and physics for nearly four decades. Already an accomplished author of two award-winning books by the early 1990’s, Marcia took time out in 1994 and 1995 to join the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship program […]
"[Video] This Is Your Brain on Space
[Director’s Introduction—In April 2015, Olga Dobrovidova, KSJ ‘15, a Moscow-based freelance science journalist, organized the first-ever Knight Science Journalism World Space Party as part of the annual worldwide celebration of Yuri’s Night, the anniversary of the historic first manned space mission by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
The KSJ event at MIT’s Stratton Student Center drew attendees from universities around Boston and featured a space-themed quiz, a talk on the effects of zero gravity on brain function by Columbia University-based neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin, and a rocking disco dance DJ’d by the very same Nikolay Kukushkin…
"Knight Fellows Reflect on their Craft in Interviews Published by MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Nobody cracks open a textbook after high school or college—so how to people learn about complex subjects like science, technology, health, and the environment and get the information they need to be smart consumers and intelligent voters?
Much of that information is delivered by journalists and media organizations—increasingly, these days, in the face of a gale of misinformation and doubt. Which is why Knight Science Journalism at MIT is fortunate to be embedded within an academic department (the Program in Science, Technology and Society) and a school (MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences where faculty and administrators understand that challenge, and believe in supporting the professionals who undertake it.
Since December, SHASS news writer Daniel Pritchard has been talking with the 2014-15 Knight Science Journalism Fellows about how and why they do their work, and what they’re learning during their two terms at MIT. Today the finished interviews were published on the SHASS news site.
As acting director of the Knight program this year, I’ve obviously gotten to know this year’s brilliant crop of Knight Felllows very …
"Why Should You Apply for a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship? Because We Don’t Think You Made a Dumb Career Move
You are a writer, a journalist, a creator. You tell stories about space exploration, environmental policy, cancer genetics, and other hard subjects that your editors don’t grok but your readers are thirsty to understand. You have a decent newsroom job, or a set of clients who run your freelance work. But you’re vaguely unsettled about your future, and you’re interested in making some kind of creative leap—maybe starting on a book, or telling stories in a new medium, or learning a new science. You believe that science and technology are cool and important, and that citizens need to understand how they work and what they produce. This belief is at the core of your vocation; you want to keep doing it, and getting better at it.
If that’s all true, then you have 18 days left to apply to join the 2015-16 class of Knight Science Journalism Fellows at MIT. And I’m going to take a few minutes to explain why you should.
First, let’s not duck the fact that it’s a challenging time to be a journalist. If you follow the angsty future-of-journalism debates on Twitter, you know that economics reporter Felix Salmon, late of Reuters and now at Fusion, shared a letter to young journalists yesterday trying to …
"KSJ in the News: Food and a Wilderness Voyage
Events and activities sponsored by Knight Science Journalism at MIT have popped up in three recent newspaper articles this month.
—On October 17, Bo Peterson of the Post and Courier in Charleston, SC, published a writeup about KSJ Project Fellow Scott Huler and his mission to recreate the 600-mile wilderness voyage of explorer John Lawson in the year 1700. “It’s almost sinful how much fun I’m having,” Huler told Peterson from a stop at Awendaw, a fishing village on the South Carolina coast. It was a strenous sort of fun, though: Peterson says Huler spent much of the first few days of his trip battling…