alumni notes

Protecting Wildlife

Erich Hoyt (‘86) received the honor of Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 British New Year’s Day Honors “for services to marine conservation,” noting his writing and research into whales. As co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, Hoyt is engaged in a long-term project with more than 350 scientists to map whale and other marine mammal habitats and offer the peer-reviewed results in a hands-on spatial tool called “Important Marine Mammal Areas.” Since 2013, the team has examined 80 percent of the global ocean. The data is cited by environmental investigation agencies and maritime organizations and is used in everything from ship rerouting to marine protected area proposals.

Hoyt also writes popular science books, encouraging public interest in the species he works to protect. Among his latest titles are “Planktonia,” “Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises,” “Strange Sea Creatures,” and “Creatures of the Deep,” all of which will be available in Japanese and Chinese by the end of 2025. He credits his time at KSJ for kickstarting much of his work today. “During my fellowship, the classes at Harvard with William Bossert (Ecology) and E.O. Wilson (Evolutionary Biology) were fundamental to much of what has followed. The class with Wilson led to travels with him in Costa Rica, two books (“The Earth Dwellers” and “Insect Lives”), and a mentorship. He advised me as my work developed from science journalism to marine conservation and academic papers and books.”

Rene Ebersole (‘22) co-founded a new nonprofit journalism organization called Wildlife Investigative Reporters & Editors (WIRE), digging deep into stories about wildlife crime and animal exploitation. WIRE is welcoming a growing roster of star advisors, Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle among them. Ebersole’s first investigation for WIRE—a story rooted in the imperiled forests of Africa’s Congo Basin—is set to be published in Rolling Stone later this year.

Stewarding the Profession of Science Journalism

Mico Tatalovic (‘18) is working on multiple projects to protect the future of science journalism in South-East Europe and globally.

He established a new initiative with the European Federation for Science Journalism (EFSJ) to safeguard science journalists’ freedoms and rights. They publish relevant statements to support journalists and protect their livelihoods. In 2025 the group published a manifesto for better supporting freelance science journalists and a statement on freedoms, rights, and independence of science journalists. Tatalovic hopes “science journalists can use these to better inform others about their work and to help them push against unreasonable requests and negotiated better freelance fees and work conditions.”

For the past few years, Tatalovic has also worked with EFSJ and the Balkan Network of Science Journalists to organize a series of seminars to reconnect and reenergize reporters in South-East Europe after the disruptions of the pandemic years. They bring together journalists in a host nation for a productive day of discussions, akin to a small national science journalists conference, where early-career colleagues can mingle with and learn from experienced professionals.

The initiative is backed by EurekAlert! and various local partners, such as the Croatian Journalists’ Association, and Serbia’s Institute for Physics Belgrade. The partnership has produced events in Zagreb, Croatia (2023), and Ljubljana, Slovenia (2024), and the group is planning an event in Belgrade, Serbia (2025).

Telling the Story of Addiction

Karen Brown (‘13) spent two weeks in Norway and England, learning how those countries address gambling addiction through gambling regulation and considering these methods as potential models for the US. The trip was part of an international reporting fellowship from The Association of Health Care Journalists, an experience Brown said provided her with “a fascinating comparison of countries with very different attitudes towards government’s role in protecting its population.”

Elana Gordon (‘19) published a story in the Washington Post titled, “These people used Narcan to save lives. Here’s how they did it.” The unique format of the story was an opportunity for Gordon to “work across mediums with graphics in a way I hadn’t fathomed has been really really rewarding.” This story builds on Gordon’s research during her fellowship year, which included studying media portrayals of addiction.

For Your Bookshelf: from AI to Aliens

Karen Hao (‘22): “Empire of AI,” coming out in May, tells the inside story of OpenAI and uses it as a lens to ask the question: how should we govern AI, and importantly, who gets to govern it? It argues that AI companies have become empires in the full sense of the word, seizing resources, recklessly racing each other, projecting tantalizing ideas of modernity, controlling knowledge production, and dispossessing the majority, all ultimately to consolidate extraordinary power and wealth in the hands of the few. Interwoven within OpenAI’s story are the stories of blossoming movements of resistance around the world that show us it’s possible to redirect the course of AI development toward something more inclusive. During her KSJ fellowship, Hao worked on a four-part series called “AI Colonialism,” arguing that AI is recreating a colonial world order, a project the book draws heavily on.

David Baron (‘90): “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America,” will hit the shelves in August after seven years of writing and research. Baron describes this title as “a work of narrative nonfiction; it traces the people, events, and societal forces that spawned one of the strangest episodes in modern history—the “Mars craze” of the early twentieth century when the public came to believe that a dying civilization lived on the planet next door.” A tale of science and imagination, the book reveals how Mars came to occupy its unique place in our minds, our fiction, and our future. Baron shared, “When I began this project, I had no idea it would take so long, but it required a tremendous amount of archival research in collections scattered across the United States and Europe. One unexpected benefit: I came to learn about the history of American science journalism, as newspapers played a key role in driving the Mars craze to its fevered climax.”

Venkatesh Hariharan (‘99): “Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries: How the Global South and Emerging Power Alliances Are Reshaping Digital Governance,” published by Cambridge University Press includes a paper co-authored by Hariharan titled, “Digital Sovereignty and Payments: A Case Study of the National Payments Corporation of India.”

Reasons to Celebrate

Lindsay Gellman (‘21) was awarded a fellowship through Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Science Writing program and the Good Science Project to support investigative feature stories that examine where science goes wrong and how it can be improved. Lindsay’s project investigates unorthodox Alzheimer’s treatments.

Dyna Rochmyaningsih (‘24) will join the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science as their Journalist in Residence this September. Rochmyaningsih will spend two months in the Department for Knowledge Systems and Collective Life researching “Alternative Sources of Knowledge in the Age of Science Suppression.” She sees her work during the PWIG fellowship as an extension of her work at KSJ, “During my fellowship year at MIT, I learned that history and philosophy are deeply embedded in science … instead of focusing on the big questions like the Origins of Life, I am now putting my attention back to the urgently needed kind of journalism service: reporting on environmental crisis.” 

Meera Subramanian (‘17) received a Mass Cultural Council Grant for Creative Individuals, which she plans to use to promote the forthcoming book, “A Better World is Possible.” This nonfiction YA graphic novel about youth confronting the climate crisis was created in collaboration with illustrator Danica Novgorodoff.

Valeria Román (‘05) defended her thesis about communication and the use of untested interventions during global health emergencies and received a Master’s Degree in Bioethics at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Buenos Aires. Román says she uses the knowledge she gained while earning her degree in her daily work as a journalist, “I can find news, sources, and approaches that I did not consider before when communicating with my audiences.”

Jane Qiu (‘18) is set to speak at this year’s International Summit on Genome Editing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Decades of Dedication: Projects Celebrate 10 Years

Luke Timmerman (‘06) celebrated the ten-year anniversary of his independent biotech publication, Timmerman Report.

Dan Falk (‘12) and Amanda Gefter (‘13) marked the ten-year anniversary of their podcast “BookLab,” in which they review popular science books.

In the News

In addition to articles that alumni have sent to KSJ directly, this section includes a compendium by Federico Kukso (‘16) highlighting a global sample of reporting by KSJ alumni.

Christoph Drösser (‘94): “Brilliant Ears? The Demystification of Perfect Pitch,” in German, Deutschlandfunk.

Steve Nadis (’ 98): “Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe,” Quanta.

Ángela Posada-Swafford (‘01): “‘Sir’ Ernest Shackleton, the last ‘dragon slayer’,” in Spanish, El Tiempo.

Valeria Román (‘05): “Climate change: How Latin American cities need to prepare for more frequent heavy rains,” in Spanish, Infobae.

Dan Falk (‘12): “Why Quantum Matters: Discovering the science that makes modern tech possible,” Discover (cover story, print issue).

Yves Sciama (‘14): “Taking into account the longevity of animals to better protect biodiversity,” in French, Mediapart.

Giovana Girardi (‘15): “Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva: ‘Lula never pressured me to endorse oil exploration,’” Agência Pública.

Zack Colman (‘16), Ben Lefebvre, Kelsey Tamborrino, and James Bikales: “Trump admin considers killing big energy projects in Dem states,” Politico.

Federico Kukso (‘16): “Panzootic times: the ‘animal pandemic’ of avian flu that is spreading unchecked around the world,” in Spanish, Agencia SINC.

Iván Carrillo (‘17): “Return of the California condor,” Knowable.

Jane Qiu (‘18): “How to Stop the Next Viral Pandemic,” Scientific American.

Mico Tatalovic (‘18): “Galaksija: How a Yugoslav Socialist-Era Magazine Covered Science,” Alternator.

Tim De Chant (‘19): “Earth AI’s algorithms found critical minerals in places everyone else ignored,” TechCrunch.

Richard Fisher (‘20): “You Can Make Amber Fossils in 24 Hours, Instead of Millions of Years,” The New York Times.

Kai Kupferschmidt (‘24): “A year later, cow flu origins are an unsettling puzzle,” Science.

Justin O’Neill (‘24): “Giant pandas are returning to the National Zoo after a 15-month absence,” NPR Morning Edition.

Dyna Rochmyaningsih (‘24): “Indonesia’s new capital could become a hot spot for infectious diseases,” Science.

Peter Whoriskey (‘24): “Private equity firms consolidating homes for disabled,” The Washington Post.

More News: Shining a Light on the State of Science

Vivien Marx (‘98): “The Value of Lab Values,” Nature Methods.

Luke Timmerman (‘06): “Defend the NIH,” Timmerman Report.

Teresa Carr (‘18) and Margaret Manto: “In War Against DEI in Science, Researchers See Collateral Damage,” Undark.

Mico Tatalovic (‘18): “Importance of diversity for more inclusive science reporting: a case study,”  European Federation for Science Journalism.

Wojciech Brzeziński (‘23) and Agata Kazmierska: “Donald Trump Gets Rid of Scientists. Because They’re Too Expensive and Leftist,” in Polish, Tygodnik Powszechny.

KSJ Alumni on How We Cover Topics in Science

Knight Science Journalism fellows come to Cambridge to embed themselves in the hustle and bustle of this science hub. They do so in part to learn more about the science itself, following their curiosity and enhancing their understanding. However, learning science is just part of the experience. KSJ fellows are invited to explore how we cover science, from the medium to the content to the sound bites in between. KSJ alumni are innovating new ways to bring quality science coverage to the public everyday. This issue of alumni notes features a sample of that effort.

Covering the Plastisphere with Anja Krieger (’16)

The United Nations is working on an international, legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution. Anja Krieger (‘16), who produces the podcast “The Plastisphere,” reports, “it’s been called the most important environmental deal since the Paris climate accord. Many countries want it to be an ambitious agreement that covers the full lifecycle of plastics, from production to disposal, including the added chemicals. But some countries are not so keen on this, and they have held up the development of the treaty.”

Krieger created a mini series on the topic in April 2024 and titled the batch of episodes “How (Not) to Make a Plastics Treaty.” She hopes it can be a resource for journalists covering the UN plastics treaty negotiations. In the series, Krieger connects with Magnus Løvold, an expert in Peace and Conflict Studies, and advisor with Lex International and NAIL, the Norwegian Academy of International Law. They dive deep into the “diplomatic gyre.” Each episode revisits one of the meetings of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee that has convened to put the treaty together. She describes the series as “perfect for all who want to report on the final round of the treaty negotiations at the end of November and early December in Busan, Korea – or just understand better how multilateral diplomacy works (or doesn’t work).”

Krieger has been following plastic pollution for 15 years. Feeling limited as she published “little bits of the story” of plastic, always starting from scratch, Krieger began searching for a more continuous medium. She found it during her KSJ fellowship. She recalls, “I found an issue of Science News Magazine in the KSJ office, and the title featured “The Plastisphere,” a story on microbes living on ocean plastics. This brought it all together, my project had a name! It took another year for me to figure out that I wanted to do a podcast, and in English, on the broader implications of the plastisphere we all live in and with – and how we can go forward.” While she has less time to work on the podcast these days, Krieger continues to produce “The Plastisphere” in her free time.

Covering Covid in 3D with Pam Belluck (’08)

Pam Belluck (‘08) and her colleagues at The New York Times recently won multiple awards for the 3D renderings they created for their 2023 project on Covid lung damage. The idea for the graphics was inspired by “cinematic rendering,” a technique to convert CT scans into 3D images to help doctors visualize internal structures. The team used data from CT scans of lungs to construct 3D models that would show the effect of Covid infections over time.

Belluck wanted to keep the project relatable for readers and suggested that the team “make the project less abstract by focusing on specific patients and telling their stories.” She interviewed three patients in different stages of recovery and spoke with their doctors to write the piece that anchored the 3D images and helped the team explain the medical details. It’s not easy to make lungs in 3D, Belluck recounts, “My colleagues in graphics and multimedia analyzed hundreds of millions of data points from the patients’ scans to reconstruct their lungs in 3-D, and devoted a lot of time and care to rendering the images and accompanying photos in a way that would take our audience on a journey inside the patients’ lungs and help us paint a picture of their post-Covid lives.” The New York Times published a look behind the scenes of this project. 

In the end, the attention to detail paid off, informing the public in a deeply impactful way. Belluck shared, “we received an extraordinary response from readers who were grateful to the three patients and said that our approach to the piece helped them understand better than they ever had before the lasting effect that Covid can have.” In addition to impacting readers lives, The Times and the reporting team, Jeremy White, Pam Belluck, Noah Bassetti-Blum, Eleanor Lutz and Hang Do Thi Duc, also won several honors from the Society for News Design, including a Gold Medal in Data Visualization.

Guide to Covering Tobacco in Latin America with Valeria Román (’05)

Valeria Roman (‘05) has written and published the first “Good Practice Guide for the Journalistic Approach to Cover Tobacco“. The guide, written in spanish, was published in May by the Instituto De Efectividad Clinic y Sanitaria (ICES) with the support of the International Development Research Centre Canada. It is a tool for journalists, communicators, and students of communication and journalism in Latin America. According to the ICES,  the guide “combines the rigor of evidence with the practical pulse of an experienced reporter, with abundant examples and recommendations.”

Román provides a history of tobacco in the media, calling attention to the ways that messaging and imagery have been used to promote tobacco addiction, and the methods that tobacco companies have used to obscure the evidence of harm. She contextualizes this history with a quote from the World Health Organization, “tobacco addiction is a communicable disease: it is transmitted through advertising, sports, marketing and sponsorship.” Román’s guide contains practical advice for dismantling pervasive falsehoods about tobacco and reporting on the topic with an eye to cultural context and economic impact. 

In addition to scientific studies around the issue of tobacco control, Roman called upon her 20-plus years of experience covering this issue while she wrote the 55-page document. Roman credits her time at KSJ for influencing her approach to the project. “It inspired me to do more activities aimed at solving problems facing humanity. In this case the guide can help journalists better report on aspects of tobacco that are usually overlooked.”

Mariana Comolli, coordinator of the Dissemination Unit for the Impact of Knowledge of the IECS, underscores the need for Roman’s guide, saying “Scientific evidence is fundamental in a world in which there are tobacco companies that do not consider the health, economic, social and environmental damage caused by smoking.” 

Additions to the KSJ Bookshelf

Ellen Ruppel Shell (’86): “Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, With Eels” published in August by Abrams Press. The book “is a fascinating account of a deeply mysterious creature—the eel—a thrilling saga of true crime, natural history, travel, and big business.” Hear Ruppel Shell talk the book on this eel-centric episode of the Science Fridays podcast. 

Claudio Angelo (’04): ”O Silêncio da Motosserra” (“Silence of the Chainsaw”) published in August by Companhia das Letras. Angelo describes the book, “about how Brazil managed to rein in Amazon deforestation. It is a result of a four-year investigation that included nearly 200 interviews with a diverse set of actors from Sting (as in the rockstar) to former presidents to local Indigenous leaders, and tells the story of Brazil’s abusive relationship with its greatest asset – and how it started to change in this century as a result of external pressures, national awareness, science, and the media.” 

Federico Kukso (’16): “Fruitologies: Political and Cultural History of Fruits” published in January by Penguin Random House. Kukso explores “the fascination experienced by explorers, spies, painters, poets, botanists, chefs and perfumers from all over the world and throughout the ages for these wonderful and aromatic crops, delicacies full of flavour and long-forgotten stories.” Kukso exercises his knack for combining “cultural, scientific, political and aesthetic perspective on a seemingly unremarkable topic,” as he did when writing “Odorama: A Cultural History of Smell,” a topic he focused on during his KSJ Fellowship.

Rowan Jacobsen (’18): “Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao’s Soul” will be published on October 8, 2024 by Bloomsbury. Jacobson tells “The thrilling story of the farmers, activists, and chocolate makers fighting ‘Big Chocolate’ to revive ancient cacao, produce the world’s finest bar, and restore the integrity of the rainforest economy.”

Anil Ananthaswamy (’20): “Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI” published in July by Penguin Random House. Ananthaswamy “explains the mathematical underpinnings of modern AI, from Rosenblatt’s perceptrons (1958) to today’s deep neural networks, with pitstops along the way to understand the seminal algorithms that have made machine learning the force it is today.” 

Award-Winning Additions to the Watchlist

Jason Spingarn-Koff (’11) was an executive producer for “Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine” (Netflix), which has received an Emmy Nomination: Outstanding  Science and Technology Documentary. The documentary follows the decades-long story of the James Webb telescope, and the engineers and scientists at NASA who stewarded the project through its “historic journey from inception to launch.”

Marcin Jamkowski (’10): “Stronger than Ever” is Jamkowski’s second feature length documentary. The film tells the story of his friend, rock climber Maciej Kubera, who is 52 years old when he takes a tragic fall while climbing. From the hospital bed, he vows to come back stronger than ever. Jamkowski witnessed Kubera take this tragic fall. Impressed by his friend’s courage to fight back, he made the award-winning film. As Jamkowski puts it, “to his own surprise, [Kubera] finds that he needs more than physical strength. Fear had taken over his climbing, and he doesn’t know how to tame this beast. To become stronger than ever, not only physically, he reaches to his friends and family. What will be their role in the process of collectively healing the trauma?” The film premiered in Kosice International Film Festival (Slovakia) where it was awarded Grand Prix. Jamkowski studied screenwriting, directing and documentary film during his KSJ fellowship, training that helped him actualize his desire to pursue filmmaking. 

More Awards

Rod McCullom (’16) was awarded a travel and reporting grant to Kavli Prize Week in Norway by the the World Federation of Science Journalists and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. McCollum spent the first week of September traveling to Oslo and Trondheim and interviewing Kavli Prize laureates in neuroscience.

Meera Subramanian (’17) won a Covering Climate Now Award for her New Yorker piece “India’s Quest to Build the largest Solar Farms.” Having previously written about small-scale answers to environmental issues in India, Subramanian recounts the contrasting experience of looking at large-scale solutions, “Standing amid a solar farm nearly the size of Manhattan was staggering, and listening to the stories of the local people illuminating.”

Behind the Desk

Meera Subramanian (’17) is leading an online writing class this November, the Masters’ Series: Writing this Warming World that will include guest authors Emily Raboteau, Elizabeth Rush, J. Drew Lanham, and Helen Macdonald. Subramanian describes the class, “From climate change to climate catastrophe to existential crisis, the vocabulary of our changing planet is quickly escalating in urgency. Writers are responding… As chroniclers of the natural world under transformation, how does our ink find the fine line between hope and despair, or should it?

Rowan Jacobsen (’18) is a 2024 Media Fellow at the Nova Institute. He will focus on “our changing relationship with sunlight and its profound impact on human health and well-being, weaving together issues related to environmental justice, disease treatment and prevention, and urban design.” 

In the News

Steve Nadis (’98) has been following the thread of string theory. He has published two articles for Quanta Magazine about how string theory might help us understand dark matter: “In a ‘Dark Dimension,’ Physicists Search for the Universe’s Missing Matter,” and “Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes.”

Rachel Ehrenberg (’14) has had an eye to the ground for Knowable Magazine, covering bioluminescent mushrooms in “What a bioluminescent petunia had to teach me,” and the koji mold responsible for soy sauce in “From toxic fungus to soy sauce superstar.” 

Laura Bliss (’23) investigated alarming mismanagement of Yosemite National Park under Aramark, the private contractor running visitor services. Bliss took a trip to Yosemite earlier this year where she said “it was clear even as a visitor that something was wrong.” Businessweek published the piece,“Parks and Degradation: The Mess at Yosemite,” where Bliss details collapsing ceilings, rat infestations, a norovirus outbreak and euthanized bears.

More from the News

In addition to articles that alumni have sent to KSJ directly, this section includes a compendium by Federico Kukso (‘16) highlighting a global sample of reporting by KSJ alumni.

Angela Posada-Swafford (‘01): “A scientific mission to save the sharks”. Knowable Magazine.

Valeria Román (‘05): “Preventing dementia: what differences did a study find between the population of Latin America and the United States?”. In Spanish. Infobae.

Daniela Hirschfeld (‘10): “What’s that smell — and how’d you know?”. Knowable Magazine.

Amanda Gefter (’13): “‘Metaphysical Experiments’ Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality“. Quanta Magazine. 

Olga Dobrovidova (‘15): “What Putin’s next term means for science“. Nature.

Giovana Girardi (‘15): “Government suspects new strategy to devastate and illegally occupy the Amazon“. In Portuguese. Agência Pública.

Federico Kukso (‘16): “A prehistoric banquet rewrites the history of American settlement”. In Spanish. Agencia SINC.

Betsy Mason (’16): “Abracadabra! How magic can help us understand animal minds”. Knowable Magazine.

Rod McCullom (’16): “In Some Cities, Second Thoughts About Gunshot Detection Sensors”. Undark.

Iván Carrillo (‘17): “Nature interrupted: Impact of the US-Mexico border wall on wildlife”. Knowable Magazine.

Teresa Carr (‘18): “How to Pinpoint the H5N1 Mortality Rate in Humans“. Undark.

Caty Enders (’18): “How Psychedelic Research Got High On Its Own Supply.” New York Times.

Rowan Jacobsen (‘18): “Against Sunscreen Absolutism“. The Atlantic.

Tim De Chant (‘19): “AI-powered water heater could banish cold showers and carbon pollution“. TechCrunch.

Jeffery DelViscio (’19): “Racism Could Be Aging People of Color Faster”. Scientific American. (with Rachel Feltman and Fonda Mwangi) 

Andrada Fiscutean (‘20): “Countdown to DORA: How CISOs can prepare for EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act“. CSO.

Richard Fisher (‘20): “Why do we clap?“. BBC.

Tasmiha Khan (’21): “For Muslim women, living faithfully in prisons is difficult”. The 19th.

Jessica Hamzelou (’24): “Maybe you will be able to live past 122“. MIT Technology Review.

Kai Kupferschmidt (’24): “Confused about the mpox outbreaks? Here’s what’s spreading, where, and why“. Science Magazine.

Dyna Rochmyaningsih (’24): “T. rex relative found in Thailand: why local researchers are excited“. Nature.