SHERP Collaborates with NSF Award Winner

NYU Journalism's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, known as SHERP, is collaborating with Professor of Biology Michael Purugannan on a $4.4 million grant Purugannan received recently from the National Science Foundation to advance his research in plant genetics.

SHERP's small portion of the grant ($26,400 over four years) will be used to help fund its "Bench Press" program, in which second-semester students are sent into laboratories all over the NYU campus to cover cutting-edge science research. Purugannan's lab, which is studying the genetic characteristics of cultivated rice, will be a key destination for SHERP students.

Many of the stories SHERP students write for Bench Press program will be published in SHERP's award-winning webzine, Scienceline, or in professional publications. The Bench Press program is under the direction of adjunct professor Bijal Trivedi, a freelance science journalist whose work appears in Wired, Science, New Scientist, The Economist, National Geographic, Discover, New York, and Air & Space among other magazines. A graduate of the SHERP program, Trivedi also holds a B.A. in biochemistry from Oberlin College and an M.S. in biology from University of California at Los Angeles.

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