Organizers of the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists are pleased to announce today the selection of 72 awardees of professional fellowships and 22 recipients of student fellowships from a total of 48 countries. The biennial meeting of international science journalists will be held October 26-30 in San Francisco, California.
The WCSJ2017 Fellowships Committee screened 589 applications for general fellowships, submitted from 103 nations. The student fellowship committee reviewed 167 applicants from 63 nations. “With nearly every region of the world represented,” Fellowships Chair Robin Lloyd said, “we are excited about this remarkably successful effort to hold a global conference.” The fellowships will cover recipients’ travel expenses to the conference.
The grants are intended to enable those who otherwise could not attend to join us for the conference by supporting travel to San Francisco, accommodations, and complimentary registration as well as workshop attendance for selected fellows. As an expression of welcome to international colleagues, U.S. science writers collected $40,000 in donations to fund 11 David Perlman Travel Fellowships, honoring the veteran San Francisco-based science journalist. Combined with support from other funders, this enabled WCSJ2017 to award a total of $273,500 in fellowships.
In addition to the Perlman Fellowships donors, WCSJ2017 is grateful to the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, Fundación Ealy Ortiz, the Rutter Foundation, Research Councils UK, Canada’s International Development Research Centre, the American Association for the Advancement of Science/EurekAlert!, Grupo Insud of Argentina, the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), Nature, Annual Reviews, the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW), Taylor & Francis, the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, and Newswise for supporting the travel grants. Fellowship donors were recruited by CASW and the World Federation of Science Journalists with support from NASW.
Professional fellows include science journalists, writers and educators working in print, broadcast, online, books and other media. Serving with Lloyd on the selection committee for professional fellowships were volunteers Nsikan Akpan, Niall Byrne, Daniela Hernandez, Maggie Koerth-Baker, Federico Kukso, Satu Lipponen, Debbie Ponchner, Kendall Powell, Czerne Reid, Mandi Smallhorne, Sarah Webb, and Emily Willingham. The committee was impressed with the overall high quality of the applications.
The 22 student fellows will attend a pre-conference workshop and report on the conference during the week. The selection committee for the student fellowships included volunteers Jennifer Cutraro, Amber Dance, Jennie Dusheck, Jeanne Erdmann, Jeff Grabmeier, Diego Graglia, Laurel Hamers, Czerne Reid, Erik Vance, Ashley Yeager and chair Robert Irion.
WCSJ2017 offers our most heartfelt congratulations to the fellows and gratitude to the sponsors and volunteers who made this program possible.
Professional fellows include the following:
- Adam Alqali (African Newspage, Nigeria)
- Pakinam Amer (Nature Middle East, Egypt)
- Thakur Amgai (Freelance, Nepal)
- Diego Arguedas-Ortiz (Semanario Universidad, Costa Rica)
- Kossi Elom Balao (Togo Matin, Togo)
- Florencia Ballarino (Perfil, Argentina)
- Christopher Bendana (New Vision, Uganda)
- Eduardo Fernando Franco Berton (Freelance and Environmental Information Network, Bolivia)
- Alexandra Borissova (Rhine-Waal University, Germany)
- Iván Carrillo (Los Observadores/I cubic hacklab, Mexico)
- Cecilia Fernández Castañon (Scientific and Technological Center of CONICET and National Northeast University, Argentina)
- Kemo Cham (Politico SL, Sierra Leone)
- Charles Chikapa (Community Radio Initiative-Malawi, Malawi)
- Oscar Cusó (El País, Spain)
- Jean Armand Bokally Dande (Freelance, Cameroon)
- Rasha Dewedar (SciDev.net and Scientific American Arabic, Egypt)
- Ofelia Domingo (Philippine Council for Agriculture Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development, Philippines)
- Michelle Donahue (Freelance, U.S.)
- Karen Emslie (Freelance, Scotland)
- Carol Francis (Public Broadcasting Corp. of Jamaica, Jamaica)
- Barbara Fraser (Freelance, Peru)
- William Funk (Freelance, U.S.)
- Geoffrey Giller (Freelance, U.S.)
- Katti Gray (Freelance, U.S.)
- Sarah Hiddleston (Nature, England)
- Bernardita Skinner Huerta (Playa Ancha University, Chile)
- Chhatra Karki (Nagarik National Newspaper, Nepal)
- Philip Keitany (Standard Media Group, Kenya)
- Daniel Keller (Keller Broadcasting, Inc., U.S.)
- Samantha Lee (New York magazine, U.S.)
- Mariana Léon (El Financiero Bloomberg, Mexico)
- David Levin (Freelance, U.S.)
- Helen Mendes Lima (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil)
- Matías Loewy (Red Argentina De Periodismo Científico and Medscape en Español, Argentina)
- Shayla Love (Freelance, U.S.)
- Caterina Elizondo Lucci (University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica)
- Sylivester Domasa Lugutu (Daily News, Tanzania)
- Daco Tambikila Lunzitisa (Radio Okapi, Democratic Republic of Congo)
- Ryan Mandelbaum (Gizmodo, U.S.)
- Aurel Marin (Viata Medicala, Romania)
- Iveliz Martel (El Diario, Peru/U.S.)
- Columbus Mavhunga (CNN, Radio France Internationale, Voice of America, German Presse Agentur and Deutsche Welle, Zimbabwe)
- Emiliano Rodríguez Mega (Freelance, Mexico)
- Jonathan Montoya (EAFIT University, Colombia)
- Mariluce de Souza Moura (Federal University of Bahia, Bahiaciência and Ciêncianarua, Brazil)
- Pouria Nazemi (Freelance, Canada)
- Ettay Nevo (Davidson Institute of Science Education, Israel)
- Chinyere Opia (Spectrum Broadcasting Company, Nigeria)
- Ankur Paliwal (Freelance, India)
- Friday Phiri (National Agricultural Information Services, Zambia)
- Rajan Pokhrel (The Himalayan Times, Nepal)
- Iramis Alonso Porro (Journal Juventud Técnica and International Institute of Journalism José Martí, Cuba)
- Guillermo López Portillo (Televisa México)
- Fitzroy Prendergast (Cable News and Sports, Jamaica)
- Peng Qian (Xinhua News Agency, China)
- Jane Qiu (Freelance, China)
- Irene Maria Rodríguez-Salas (La Nación, Costa Rica)
- Nadiah Rosli (Freelance, Malaysia)
- Dinsa Sachan (Freelance, India)
- Renata Sánchez (El Universal, Mexico)
- Antoinette Sendolo (Inquirer, Liberia)
- Ramin Skibba (Freelance, U.S.)
- Daniela Hirschfeld Tempone (Galería and Búsqueda, Uruguay),
- Viviane Thivent (Freelance, France)
- Thi Thuý Bình Tran (Hanoi Radio and Television, Vietnam)
- Tikondane Vega (Malawi News Agency (MANA), Malawi)
- Sergio Vicke (Sistema Publico de Radiofusion, Mexico)
- Niki Wilson (Freelance, Canada)
- Ling Xin (Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
- Shamsheer Yousaf (Freelance, India)
- Suhail Yusuf (The Express Media Group, Pakistan)
- Marinee Zavala (Televisa, Mexico)
Student fellowship recipients are Setsen Altan-Ochir (Mongolia), Jesus Antonio Pascual Álvarez (Mexico), Sibusiso Biyela (South Africa), Jillian Clemente (U.S.), Andjela Djuraskovic (Montenegro), Omnia Gohar (Egypt), Inés Gutiérrez (Mexico), Kelsey Harper (U.S.), Amelia Jaycen (U.S.), Elizabeth Kimbrough (U.S.), Jennifer Lu (U.S.), Margarida Marques (Portugal), Michelle Morelos (Mexico), Jia Naqvi (Qatar), Felix Reskala (Mexico), Odom Rithy (Cambodia), Sebastián Rodríguez (Costa Rica), Leah Rosenbaum (U.S.), Ellen Rykers (New Zealand), Sergio Villagrán (Chile), Carolyn Wilke (U.S.), and Olansis Wolde (Ethiopia).
To learn more, visit www.wcsj2017.org and subscribe to the newsletter and updates. Also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
CONTACTS
Rosalind Reid, executive director, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing: ros@casw.org
Tinsley Davis, executive director, National Association of Science Writers: director@nasw.org
Damien Chalaud, executive director, World Federation of Science Journalists: dchalaud@wfsj.org
