Program News
- October 25, 2024
Zack Savitsky wins top national award for early career science journalists
The recognition for Savitsky, class of 2022, is among several major prizes received this fall by graduates of the SciCom Program
- October 18, 2024
Majority of national science writers' board composed of SciCom alumni
The 2024-26 board of directors of the National Association of Science Writers features eight UCSC graduates among its 15 volunteer members, including president Sandeep Ravindran '11 and treasurer Jyoti Madhusoodanan 14.
- October 21, 2022
SciCom graduate, data visualization lecturer win major national journalism honors
Alumnus Rodrigo Pérez Ortega and lecturer Jessica Kendall-Bar are recognized by the National Academies in the inaugural Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication
- August 16, 2021
Nicholas St. Fleur wins top award for young science journalists
St. Fleur, a 2014 SciCom graduate, is recognized for his insightful health reporting at STAT, especially on racial disparities in COVID diagnosis and treatment.
- June 15, 2021
Science Communication graduate earns team Pulitzer Prize honor at 'The New York Times'
Alumna Julia Calderone '15 shares in the prestigious 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for her reporting and data analysis of the COVID-19 epidemic.
- October 24, 2019
Boosting diversity, inclusion, and representation in science journalism
Science Communication Master's Program empowers the next generation of science journalists with support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
- June 5, 2018
Master's degree approved for Science Communication Program
After 37 years of awarding a graduate certificate, the SciCom program will confer a master's degree upon all graduates starting in June 2019.
- August 30, 2017
SciCom graduates spanned the country to cover the solar eclipse
From NASA TV to KQED radio to the pages of The New York Times, graduates of the Science Communication Program played a major role in conveying the scientific and societal impacts of the August 21 solar eclipse to eager readers.
- June 22, 2017
Knight Foundation funds project on breaking "filter bubbles" in science journalism
The SciCom Program will explore ways to broaden the reach of science journalism and improve civic discourse on science-related issues through an innovative project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
- April 17, 2017
Hearst Foundations awards $100,000 to SciCom program
The second award from the Hearst Foundations to SciCom will support a major upgrade in digital journalism training, as well as lecturing costs and outreach to diversify the student cohorts.
- September 15, 2016
Erika Check Hayden named third director of SciCom program
Veteran journalist for Nature and longtime SciCom lecturer in social media will take the program's reins in January 2017
- April 30, 2016
Student journalist wins statewide award for class article on mercury in pumas
Henry Houskeeper, a UC Santa Cruz graduate student in ocean sciences, has received a statewide news reporting award for a class story about the threat to mountain lions posed by mercury from the ocean.
- April 18, 2016
Lecturer Martha Mendoza wins second Pulitzer Prize
Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza, who teaches investigative reporting for the SciCom program, received her second Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories exposing slave labor in the Thai seafood industry.
- September 15, 2015
Philanthropists David and Dana Loury support new SciCom scholarship
David and Dana Loury, parents of SciCom alumna Erin Loury '12, have established a new fund to support a graduate scholarship and guest lectures by journalists in the Science Communication Program.
- March 17, 2015
Alumnus Matt Davenport wins Newsbrief Award from D.C. science writers
SciCom alumnus Matt Davenport has received the Newsbrief Award from the D.C. Science Writers Association for "Why Fruit Flies Could Make Your Beer Better," a video published by the American Chemical Society and its flagship publication, Chemical & Engineering News.
- April 8, 2014
Nadia Drake '11 joins National Geographic "Phenomena" blog
The roster of science bloggers at National Geographic includes some of the field's most luminous writers. SciCom graduate Nadia Drake has now joined the team to cover space science in her blog "No Place Like Home."
- March 18, 2014
Meghan Rosen '12 wins DCSWA Science Newsbrief Award
SciCom graduate Meghan Rosen received the 2013 Science Newsbrief Award from the D.C. Science Writers Association (DCSWA) for a sharp and colorful news story in Science News.
- December 18, 2013
An Earth science smorgasbord fills the AGU meeting blog
Planet Earth and its realm in space provided a broad canvas for research stories painted by this year's SciCom students for the national blog from the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting.
- November 2, 2013
SciCom alumna Christie Aschwanden wins NASW commentary award
Christie Aschwanden, a Colorado-based freelance journalist and a 1998 graduate of the SciCom program, has received a 2013 Science-in-Society Journalism Award for her commentary on breast-cancer screening policies.
- October 17, 2013
Helen Shen's "Itsy Bitsy Drummer" podcast selected for Science Studio
"The Itsy Bitsy Drummer," a podcast written and produced by SciCom student Helen Shen '12, was selected for the inaugural edition of Science Studio—The Best Science Multimedia on the Web.
- September 11, 2013
Greg Miller '01 shares National Academies writing prize
A special series of stories on "Human Conflict" in Science magazine, coauthored by SciCom graduate Greg Miller, has received one of the country's leading prizes in science journalism.
- May 26, 2013
Antarctic ice video filmed by alumna approaches 600,000 views
Cassandra Brooks '09 has long wanted one of her videos from Antarctica's Ross Sea to go viral. She broke the ice in May 2013 with a striking five-minute film that surpassed 500,000 plays on YouTube within two weeks.
- April 25, 2013
"The Science Writers' Handbook" features sage advice from alumni
Eight graduates of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program are among the contributors to The Science Writers' Handbook, a comprehensive new guide to popular science writing.
- April 15, 2013
Kathleen Wong '99 honored for book on San Francisco Bay's natural history
Natural History of San Francisco Bay, a book coauthored by SciCom alumna Kathleen Wong '99, has received the Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting from The Bay Institute of San Francisco.
- March 8, 2013
Cassandra Brooks '09 blogs for National Geographic from Ross Sea
The delicate ecological balance and extraordinarily productive waters of Antarctica's Ross Sea are under scrutiny this season by a team of scientists including SciCom graduate Cassandra Brooks, who is reporting on the research cruise for National Geographic.
- February 28, 2013
Alumnus Anil Ananthaswamy wins inaugural U.K. Physics Journalism Prize
Journalist Anil Ananthaswamy, a 2000 graduate of the Science Communication Program, has received the inaugural Physics Journalism Prize from the U.K. Institute of Physics.
- December 14, 2012
Asteroids, volcanoes, and rising seas: SciCom students blog from AGU
The annual deluge of research about planet Earth at the American Geophysical Union meeting offered a blogging bonanza for SciCom students in early December.
- November 4, 2012
Class of 2013 launches Out of the Fog science blog
Students in the Science Communication Program's class of 2013 have launched their class science blog, Out of the Fog, as part of their fall-quarter course in social media.
- November 2, 2012
Eva Emerson '94 named editor-in-chief of Science News
Eva Emerson, a 1994 graduate of the Science Communication Program, is the new editor-in-chief of one of the country's most venerable science periodicals, Science News.
- August 13, 2012
Curiosity landing on Mars covered by SciCom's national space reporters
NASA's spectacular landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars sparked a red tide of media coverage in August, including stories by a half-dozen national reporters trained in the SciCom program.
- July 16, 2012
Science videos from multimedia class now posted on Vimeo
Marine algae that bloom along the California coast, oaks stricken by a kelp-like mold, and the hopes of people with multiple sclerosis are among the subjects featured in this year's science videos produced by students in the Science Communication Program.
- June 15, 2012
SciCom graduates embark on national summer internships
The latest graduating class from UCSC's Science Communication Program has landed a set of summer internships spanning the country, from prominent magazines to major research agencies.
- April 15, 2012
Peabody Award recognizes video work of SciCom alumna Solana Pyne
A video series by GlobalPost, featuring several productions by Science Communication Program graduate Solana Pyne, received a 2011 George Foster Peabody Award for distinguished achievement in electronic media.
- March 31, 2012
Students publish new Q&As from the AAAS 2012 meeting in Vancouver
Conversations with an Inuit language advocate, a deep-sea oceanographer, and a tissue engineer growing synthetic beef in the lab are part of the 2012 edition of The SciCom Interviews, published by current students in the Science Communication Program.
- March 27, 2012
"Newsbriefs" by SciCom alumni win kudos from D.C. science writers
The D.C. Science Writers Association has awarded its 2011 Science Newsbrief Award to SciCom alumna Nadia Drake, staff writer at Science News, for her story on the origins of a strange pattern on one of Saturn's moons.
- January 31, 2012
Book on Icelandic volcano earns geosciences fellowship for Alexandra Witze
Alexandra Witze, contributing editor at Science News and a 1993 alumna of the SciCom Program, has received a reporting fellowship from the European Geosciences Union to write a book about the cataclysmic 1783 eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki.
- January 12, 2012
SciCom alumnus Dana Mackenzie wins career mathematics writing award
Freelance journalist Dana Mackenzie, a 1997 graduate of the Science Communication Program, has earned career recognition from a consortium of national societies for his reporting in mathematics.
- December 15, 2011
Do you use "vocal fry?" It's the most popular story on ScienceNOW, ever
"Vocal fry," an oddly named low-pitched vibration used by a growing number of young speakers, rumbled into the national news in December after ScienceNOW published a story written by SciCom student Marissa Fessenden.
- December 9, 2011
SciCom students blog from the AGU newsroom in San Francisco
A popular science blog run by the American Geophysical Union featured news stories reported by SciCom students during AGU's annual fall meeting, held December 5-9 in San Francisco.
- November 17, 2011
Lecturer Martha Mendoza spearheads AP right-to-know investigation
SciCom lecturer Martha Mendoza has led a major Associated Press investigation into whether countries follow their right-to-know laws in response to media and citizen requests.
- November 13, 2011
SciCom students report for global conservation site Mongabay.com
The news section of Mongabay.com, a noted international site on conservation and the environment, features articles written by the ten graduate students in this year's Science Communication Program class at UC Santa Cruz.
- October 7, 2011
SciCom alumni write chapters for "Science on Ice" photo book
SciCom graduates Helen Fields and Hugh Powell have written chapters for Science on Ice, a chronicle of four polar science expeditions by acclaimed photographer Chris Linder.
- September 23, 2011
Science Notes 2011 earns notice in two national blogs
Science Notes 2011, the latest edition of SciCom's annual multimedia magazine, was spotlighted in the Knight Science Journalism Tracker and Scientific American's "The Incubator" blog.
- August 3, 2011
New children's book explores evolution and the origin of birds
SciCom alumna Eileen Campbell, an exhibit and interpretive writer, has published a book on evolution for kids based on a traveling exhibition she helped to create with the New York Hall of Science.
- July 18, 2011
Lecturer Ken McLaughlin earns Emmy nomination for Mercury News project
Ken McLaughlin, assistant city editor at the San Jose Mercury News and a SciCom lecturer in news reporting, has been nominated for an Emmy Award for his reporting on "Torn Apart," a multimedia project on immigration published in the Mercury News.
- July 3, 2011
Davide Castelvecchi launches new math blog at Scientific American
Davide Castelvecchi, an editor at Scientific American and a 2004 SciCom graduate, has started "Degrees of Freedom," a new math and physics blog in SciAm's online network.
- May 2, 2011
Hearst Foundations award $100,000 grant to SciCom Program
The Hearst Foundations, founded in the 1940s by William Randolph Hearst, have granted $100,000 to the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz to support the program's corps of professional instructors.
- May 1, 2011
Naturalist and artist Sarah Rabkin publishes new book of essays
SciCom alumna Sarah Rabkin, class of 1985, has published "What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World"—a nonfiction collection that fuses personal essay and science journalism, enriched by Rabkin's own illustrations from her explorations as a naturalist.
- April 17, 2011
Faye Flam starts evolution blog at the Philadelphia Inquirer
Faye Flam, longtime science reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a 1988 SciCom graduate, has launched a new blog on evolution, called "Planet of the Apes."
- December 20, 2010
Best Physics Book for 2010 authored by Anil Ananthaswamy '00
The Edge of Physics, a popular cosmology book by alumnus Anil Ananthaswamy, class of 2000, is the top physics book of 2010.
- December 17, 2010
Roberta Kwok receives feature-writing prize from American Geophysical Union
Freelance science writer Roberta Kwok, a 2008 SciCom graduate, has won the 2010 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—Features from the American Geophysical Union.
- November 19, 2010
Multimedia journalist Kayvon Sharghi speaks at Kavli Institute
Kayvon Sharghi, a science videographer and a SciCom alumnus, class of 2009, spent time in November 2010 as a journalist in residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara.
- November 7, 2010
Amber Dance receives top award for science journalists under age 30
The National Press Foundation has awarded its 2010 Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award to Amber Dance, freelance science journalist in Pasadena, CA, and a 2008 SciCom graduate. The award recognizes the nation's top science writer under age 30.
