Awards: AAAS Kavli Award

The AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards are designed to recognize distinguished science reporting by professional journalists. Below is Showcase’s collection of AAAS Kavli award winners.

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 […]

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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 […]

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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,” […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Alive Inside

Mike Hixenbaugh •
PUBLISHED BY: The Houston Chronicle ON December 3, 2017
AAAS Kavli Award

Danielle McNicoll wheeled her fiancé into his hospital room after physical therapy, then turned his power chair to face a mirror and ran her fingers through his hair. He never would have let it get this long, she thought. …

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The Loneliest Polar Bear | Chapter 1

Kale Williams •
PUBLISHED BY: The Oregonian ON October 16, 2017
AAAS Kavli Award

In the den, the walls were white like ice. Light came from a single red bulb. The air smelled of cool concrete, of straw piled thick, and of a heavy, captive musk. Somewhere, tucked under her 600-pound mother, was Nora. …

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Inside the Firestorm

Douglas Fox •
PUBLISHED BY: High Country News ON April 3, 2017
AAAS Kavli Award

Douglas Fox’s story, on new technology that allows scientists to see the forces behind the flames, won the AAAS Kavli award in 2017. Fox is a freelance journalist who writes extensively on earth, Antarctic, and polar sciences. Aircraft N2UW has flown […]

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Storygram: Sarah Wild’s “Bones specialists try to prise secrets from the veld bodies”

Sarah Wild • • March 20, 2018
PUBLISHED BY: Mail & Guardian ON January 20, 2017
AAAS Kavli Award

If it wasn’t for the smell, no one would know there was a body there. The savannah grass reaches above the waists of passers-by sweating under the Gauteng summer sun. …

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Storygram: Jane Qiu’s “Trouble in Tibet”

Jane Qiu • • November 7, 2017
PUBLISHED BY: Nature ON January 13, 2016
AAAS Kavli Award

In the northern reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, dozens of yaks graze on grasslands that look like a threadbare carpet. The pasture has been munched down to bare soil in places, and deep cracks run across the snow-dusted landscape. The animals’ owner, a herder named Dodra, emerges from his home wearing a black robe, a cowboy hat and a gentle smile tinged with worry. …

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