Stories

Award-winning journalism from the Showcase collection

Meet the scientist at the center of the covid lab leak controversy

Jane Qiu
PUBLISHED BY: MIT Technology Review ON February 9, 2022
AAAS Kavli Award

Jane Qiu, an independent science writer based in Beijing, won a 2022 AAAS Kavli Award for this profile of virologist Shi Zhengli, a central figure in the global debate about how the COVID-19 pandemic began. The story was also featured […]

Read More

The Plague Years: How the rise of right-wing nationalism is jeopardizing the world’s health

Maryn McKenna
PUBLISHED BY: The New Republic ON April 1, 2019
AAAS Kavli Award CASW Cohn Prize

Maryn McKenna, senior writer at WIRED and a widely published author, won CASW’s Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting in 2023 for her coverage of infectious diseases and global health. This story from her extensive freelance portfolio […]

Read More

A Field at a Crossroads: Genetics and Racial Mythmaking

Ashley Smart
PUBLISHED BY: Undark ON December 12, 2022
NASW Science in Society Award AAAS Kavli Award

Ashley Smart, senior editor at Undark, associate director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, and CASW’s treasurer, won a 2023 NASW Science and Society award and a 2023 AAAS Kavli Award for this story. His “tour de force,” […]

Read More

The Smoke Comes Every Year. Sugar Companies Say the Air Is Safe.

Lulu Ramadan, Ash Ngu, Maya Miller
PUBLISHED BY: ProPublica, The Palm Beach Post ON July 8, 2021
AAAS Kavli Award KSJ Victor K. McElheny Award

This feature is the central story of Black Snow, a series by ProPublica and The Palm Beach Post investigating the health impacts – and government failures – of burning sugar cane among poor communities in Florida. Lulu Ramadan (formerly at […]

Read More

A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air

Mariano Zafra, Javier Salas
PUBLISHED BY: El País ON October 24, 2020
AAAS Kavli Award

This visual story, published by the Spanish-language newspaper El País, provides an overview of COVID-19 risk in indoor spaces and how different safety measures may help, based on an estimation tool developed by atmospheric chemist José Luis Jiménez. Co-authors Mariano […]

Read More

Started Out as a Fish. How Did It End Up Like This?

Sabrina Imbler
PUBLISHED BY: The New York Times ON April 29, 2022
CASW Clark/Payne

This story, which drew attention across social media for its catchy headline and meme-worthy subject, was one of four articles that led Sabrina Imbler to win CASW’s Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for young science journalists in 2022. Imbler wrote the […]

Read More

What Happened to the Poster Children of OxyContin?

John Fauber and Ellen Gabler
PUBLISHED BY: Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today ON May 17, 2019
CASW Cohn Prize

Driving home from a hunting trip in 2008, Johnny Sullivan called his wife to say he was having trouble staying awake. …

Read More

Who Was That?

Eva Wolfangel
PUBLISHED BY: Die Zeit ON June 1, 2017
European Science Writer of the Year

Whenever you make a bank transfer via the Internet, you leave unique tracks. Using such biometric footprints, a discreet company identifies millions of users on behalf of banks. The users don’t know anything about it.

Read More

Storygram: Ed Yong’s “North Atlantic Right Whales Are Dying in Horrific Ways”

Ed Yong • October 8, 2019
PUBLISHED BY: The Atlantic ON June 27, 2019
Showcase Selection

Six individuals—more than 1 percent of the population—were found dead just this month, the latest entries in a troubling pattern.

Read More

Meet the ‘Rented White Coats’ Who Defend Toxic Chemicals

David Heath
PUBLISHED BY: The Center for Public Integrity ON February 8, 2016
NASW Science in Society Award

The series “Science for Sale,” which offers a rare glimpse into a world where corporate interests dictate their own science, won NASW’s Science in Society Award in 2017. Although the series includes a number of stories, the one re-published below […]

Read More