This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to participate in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellowship with Inside Climate News (ICN). Over 10 weeks, I traded research papers for a press badge and threw myself into the fray of ICN’s fast-paced, Pulitzer-winning newsroom to report on a variety of environmental news stories. 

We spent the first week of the fellowship on an orientation field trip in D.C., where we met our fellowship cohort and sat through a crash course on science journalism at AAAS’s swanky headquarters. After being let loose into the wild world of science reporting, my first few weeks at ICN were spent acclimating to the frenetic pace of its star-studded newsroom. 

My usual peer-review deadlines, measured in months, were truncated to mere days and hours. It felt like I was cramming essays before college midterms all over again. As I slowly found my feet, I had the chance to pitch all sorts of stories, including pieces on the inadequacies of global marine protected areas, shifting ecological baselines of wolf extirpations, and the spread of invasive seagrass species across the Caribbean. 

Following that, I spent the second half of my fellowship on a field assignment, where I hiked a 500-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. Heavy snows had hindered my attempt to hike this portion of the trail in 2019, so I was back both to tick this off the bucket list as well as to use this opportunity to write about pressing environmental challenges facing the region. Through interviews with hikers, scientists, and local community members, I worked with ICN’s incredible editors and production team to create a first-person narrative series, “Miles to Go,” on how climate change impacts the Californian wilderness and the people who rely on it.

Overall, the fellowship not only honed my science communication skills but also strengthened my ability to translate technical scientific issues into engaging narratives. I developed a range of skills: writing about science for a broad audience, pitching stories to editors, conducting interviews in dynamic and often unpredictable field environments, and integrating visuals and multimedia into my reporting. 

I also learned the value of agile, adaptive journalism—an essential skill when writing in, and about, a fast-changing world. This meant not only shifting my focus quickly as new developments emerged but also tailoring my work to different audiences and platforms.

Finally, the summer also served as a reminder that the climate and biodiversity crises are not just scientific issues, but human ones, and that there are talented and passionate people from many career paths coming together to ultimately effect change. Ten out of 10—would recommend!

If you are interested in learning more about science journalism and/or the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, reach out to me at [email protected], and I'd be happy to chat!