Awards
A sampling of recent prizes and fellowships awarded to SHERP graduates, students, and faculty.
June 3, 2025
Peter Fairley (SHERP 1994) wins national award for feature on Taiwan chip behemoth
Fairley’s story won the gold medal for best print feature from the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
May 16, 2025
Calli McMurray (SHERP 2023) wins grand prize in specialized journalism contest
McMurray won top honors in the 70th Jesse H. Neal Awards, the most prestigious prize for specialized journalism in the U.S. Her feature for The Transmitter not only won its category (Best Single Article) but also won the Grand Neals Award as the best entry overall in any of the 27 categories. The organizers describe the Grand Neals Award as “the pinnacle of B2B editorial achievement”.
April 15, 2025
Charlie Wood (SHERP 2018) shares National Magazine Award
Wood wrote five of the nine stories in Quanta Magazine’s winning entry: The Unraveling of Space-Time. It won the 2025 National Magazine Award for Best Single-Topic Issue.
April 15, 2025
Bijal Trivedi (SHERP 1998) is named a Guggenheim Fellow
Trivedi received the honor to support her current book project, a cultural and scientific history of sickle cell disease. Her last book, Breath from Salt, was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
April 11, 2025
Joss Fong (SHERP 2013) wins global video journalism award
Fong and her co-creator Adam Cole have been chosen as one of the winners of the inaugural News Creator Award for Excellence in Independent Video Journalism, sponsored by the International Center for Journalists. They won for their YouTube channel Howtown. You can read a recent interview with Joss and Adam here. One of the people who nominated Joss and Adam for this award described them as “the two most talented science video journalists in the world.”
April 2, 2025
Lori Youmshajekian (SHERP 2023) named a Logan Science Journalism Fellow
Youmshajekian will study biomedical science this summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
March 21, 2025
Four NYU Journalism Alumni were selected as 2025-26 New York Times Fellows
Congratulations to Pooja Salhotra (LitRep 2022), Kailyn Rhone (BER 2023), Alexa Robles-Gil (SHERP 2024), and Owen Berg (Studio 20 2023).
December 23, 2024
Whitcomb was chosen for their feature story on an Indigenous tribe’s struggle to save two endangered fishes. In 2023, their story about a scientist’s quest to find climate-safe habitats for endangered amphibians was chosen.
June 17, 2024
Two more SHERP students awarded national scholarships
Two incoming SHERP students, Lina Savage and Lauren Schneider, are among six aspiring science journalists awarded Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowships by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
May 24, 2024
SHERP Class Wins National Contest for Best Student Magazine Issue
The 41st SHERP class, which graduated in December 2023, won 1st prize in the category of best single-issue student magazine in the Society of Professional Journalists’ nationwide Mark of Excellence contest, one of the largest journalism contests in the world. The SHERP students won for their Scienceline for Kids issue, which the class conceived and developed as an entirely student-led project. You can read about how they did it here. To advance to the national contest, the SHERP students first had to win the Northeast regional contest. They then competed against 11 other regional winners and came out on top! Congratulations to issue editor Ellyn Lapointe, art director Alice Sun, and writer/editors Timmy Broderick, Emily Driehaus, Anna Gibbs, Maddie Goldberg, Gina Jiménez, Calli McMurray, Kiley Price, Gwendolyn Rak, Marlowe Starling, and Lori Youmshajekian. Their faculty advisor is Distinguished Journalist in Residence Ivan Oransky
May 7, 2024
Murgia won the designation for her new book, Code Dependant, which debuted at #9 on the Times Best Seller list in the UK.
May 2, 2024
Announcing the Winners of the 2024 Marlene Sanders Award in Journalism
The Marlene Sanders Award is presented to a student whose work goes beyond good grades and exemplifies the spirit, love of journalism, energy and drive of pioneering journalist, Marlene Sanders.
2024 Winners
Undergraduate
Nandini Gupta (Video)
Giuliana Brida (Print)
Graduate
Rishabh Jain (NewsDoc)
Marlowe Starling (SHERP)
September 13, 2023
Sharon Guynup (SHERP 1998) named NYU Alumni Changemaker of the Year
Guynup won the honor for her investigative stories shining a light on threats to tigers and other at-risk animals all over the world. She also recently co-founded Big Cat Voices, a film, photography, and storytelling nonprofit focusing on protecting the world’s big cats and the lands they inhabit.
July 10, 2023
Deborah Balthazar (SHERP 2022) wins post-grad fellowship
Balthazar has been awarded the Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellowship at STAT News. Balthazar got her undergraduate degree in biology and then worked in local news and taught middle-school science before coming to SHERP. She will spend a year working at STAT’s main office in Boston.
April 20, 2023
Chana Steifel (SHERP 1991) wins major children’s literature prize
Steifel won the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature for her book, The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs. It’s the third major award for her book,
July 27, 2022
Bijal Trivedi (SHERP 1998) wins inaugural Sharon Begley Prize for Science Reporting
Bijal Trivedi (SHERP 1998)
The prize comes with a $20,000 grant to support a reporting project. Trivedi is the senior editor for science at National Geographic. The new award is administered by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
May 18, 2022
Science Writing Award Goes to Recent SHERP Graduate
Jonathan Moens (SHERP 2020) won the annual science writing award of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, for an investigative report on chick-culling that was originally produced for a SHERP class and ultimately published in Undark.
May 5, 2022
Two Incoming SHERP Students Win Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowships
Anna Gibbs (left) and Marlowe Starling (right)
Anna Gibbs and Marlowe Starling (SHERP 2023) were awarded the prestigious fellowships by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
September 21, 2021
Rose Eveleth (SHERP 2011) named a New America National Fellow
Eveleth was awarded the fellowship to produce a podcast series on gender verification testing in sports. She is a writer, author and independent podcaster who explores how humans tangle with science and technology.
September 16, 2021
Peter Fairley (SHERP 1994) wins climate investigative reporting award
Fairley won in the investigative reporting category of the Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards. He was recognized for his story, “Who Killed the Supergrid” published in the Atlantic and InvestigateWest.
August 5, 2021
Four SHERP Alums Win Environmental Journalism Prizes
Lili Pike (top left), Lauren Young (top right), Lynne Peeples (bottom left), Katie Peek (bottom right)
Lili Pike (SHERP 2020) won first place in the student category of the Society of Environmental Journalists Awards for Covering the Environment for a story about climate threats to public housing that started as a class assignment and was ultimately published in Undark. Lauren Young (SHERP 2015) won second place in the small market-features category for a Valley Fever series for Science Friday. Lynne Peeples (SHERP 2009) won third in small-market explanatory for an Ensia series on drinking water threats, while Katie Peek (SHERP 2010) won honorable mention in the same category for an Audubon feature about ocean plastics.
June 30, 2021
SHERP grads win national trade journalism award two straight years
Antonio Regalado (SHERP 1994) won the award from the National Institute of Health Care Management Foundation for his stories in MIT Technology Review about the race to find a covid-19 drug in the blood of survivors. In 2020, Caitlin Cox (SHERP 2004) won the same award.
June 26, 2021
Two SHERP Alums Awarded Knight Science Journalism Project Fellowships
Rene Ebersole (left) and Ferris Jabr (right)
Rene Ebersole (SHERP 17) will use her fellowship to pursue a book on junk science in the criminal justice system, while Ferris Jabr (SHERP 28) will use his for a book on the coevolution of earth and life.
June 3, 2021
Delger Erdenesanaa (SHERP 2021) wins NASW scholarship
Delger Erdenesanaa
Erdenesanaa has been awarded one of three Diversity Summer Fellowships presented by the National Association of Science Writers. She is interning this summer at Inside Climate News covering environmental justice.
April 29, 2021
Two SHERP alums awarded Logan Science Journalism Fellowships at MBL
Alexa Kurzius (SHERP 2013) and Dan Drollette, Jr. (SHERP 1994)
Alexa Kurzius (SHERP 2013), the managing editor of Newsela, and Dan Drollette, Jr. (SHERP 1994) will study biomedical science this summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
April 26, 2021
Incoming SHERP student is NYU’s first McCormick scholar
Deborah Balthazar
Deborah Balthazar is the inaugural NYU recipient of the Anne O’Hare McCormick Memorial Fund Scholarship. The $3,000 award is given in honor of Fund board member emerita Elizabeth “Betsy” Wade, the first woman to edit news copy at the New York Times.
April 23, 2021
SHERP prof to lead science writing council
Robin Lloyd, who teaches the SHERP Writing and Reporting Workshop I class, is the newly elected president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, a nonprofit organization working to increase the quality and quantity of science news reaching the public.
December 28, 2020
Two SHERP alums win cancer coverage fellowships
Marcus Banks (SHERP 2019) and Cheryl Platzman Weinstock (SHERP 1983) have been named National Cancer Reporting Fellows by the Association of Health Care Journalists.
December 23, 2020
Bijal Trivedi (SHERP 1998) longlisted for major science book award
Trivedi was long-listed for the Pen/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for her new book Breath from Salt: A Deadly Genetic Disease, a New Era in Science, and the Patients and Families Who Changed Medicine Forever.
December 22, 2020
SHERP student awarded post-grad fellowship
Maria Paula Rubiano (SHERP 2020) has been awarded an Open Notebook Early Career Fellowship.
December 8, 2020
Ferris Jabr (SHERP 2010) awarded creative nonfiction grant
Jabr won a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant for his book project, A Symphony of Earth.
November 11, 2020
Joss Fong (SHERP 2013) wins second AAAS science journalism award
This year’s prize was a silver award in the video category, for coverage explaining COVID-19 statistics.
August 2, 2020
Lynne Peeples (SHERP 2009) awarded book fellowship
Peeples was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Project Fellowship for her book project on modern assaults on our natural body clocks.
June 30, 2020
SHERP grad wins national trade journalism award
Caitlin Cox (SHERP 2004) was recognized by the National Institute of Health Care Management Foundation for her stories about the risks of outpatient heart procedures.
June 27, 2020
Incoming SHERP student wins outdoor writing fellowship
Delger Erdenesanaa has been awarded a Bodie McDowell Scholarship from the Outdoor Writers Association of America.
June 17, 2020
SHERP student wins summer fellowship
MK Manoylov (SHERP 2020) has been awarded a 2020 Diversity Summer Fellowship from the National Association of Science Writers.
February 6, 2020
Three SHERP faculty members honored at National Magazine Awards
A group that included Rene Ebersole won the personal service category for Audubon stories on climate change activism. Robin Marantz Henig was a finalist in the same category for her Oprah Magazine story on menopause. John Rennie is deputy editor at Quanta, which was a finalist for general excellence.
October 14, 2019
Medical journalist Ashley Lyles (SHERP 2017) has been named Miss New York International.
October 14, 2019
SHERP alum wins New York health journalism award
Apoorva Mandavilli (SHERP 1999) has won a Front Page Award for health coverage from the Newswomen’s Club of New York for her story for Undark about a measles outbreak.
October 10, 2019
SHERP graduate wins national award for coverage of autism and suicide
Cheryl Platzman Weinstock (SHERP 1983) has won the SAVE National Media Award for Excellence in Reporting on Suicide, in the feature category, for her story in Spectrum about autism and suicide.
October 7, 2019
SHERP grad wins Paris reporting fellowship
Katie Hiler Feather (SHERP 31) has won a fellowship to attend the Paris Accords of Science Communication.
September 28, 2019
SHERP alum wins national science reporting award
Arielle Duhaime-Ross (SHERP 2013) has won a 2019 Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. She won the science features category for her story for Vice News about sewage problems in rural Alabama.
September 23, 2019
SHERP graduate wins national medical reporting prize
Apoorva Mandavilli (SHERP 1999) has won one of the world’s top medical reporting awards: the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting from the Council to Advance Science Writing. She was honored for several recently published
August 21, 2019
Two SHERP alums win environmental reporting fellowships
Mark Kaufman (SHERP 2017) and Rachel Nuwer (SHERP 2011) have been awarded project reporting grants by the Society of Environmental Journalists.
August 15, 2019
Three SHERP graduates finalists in national science reporting contest
Antonio Regalado (SHERP 1994), Melinda Wenner Moyer (SHERP 2006) and Naveena Sadasivam (SHERP 2013) have been named finalists in the 2019 National Academies Science Communication Awards for these three stories.
August 6, 2019
SHERP professor wins national award for science writing in medicine
Melinda Wenner Moyer, a 2006 SHERP graduate who is now a SHERP professor, has won the 2019 Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine. In accepting the award, she gave a talk on the “joys and trials of science writing”.
July 30, 2019
Three SHERP grads place in national environmental reporting awards
Rachel Nuwer (SHERP 2011), Apoorva Mandavilli (SHERP 1999) and Arielle Duhaime-Ross (SHERP 2013) have been named finalists in the 2019 Society of Environmental Journalists Awards for Reporting on the Environment, for stories about wildlife poaching, the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster, pollution in the rural South, and other work.
April 22, 2019
Two SHERP students awarded scholarships
Marcus Banks (SHERP 2019) and Dani Leviss (SHERP 2019) have been awarded Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowships by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
April 17, 2019
SHERP alum awarded food reporting fellowship
Rose Eveleth (SHERP 2011) has been awarded a Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.