The National Association of Science Writers and its Education Committee have published their latest Student Newsroom and announced five Summer Writing Awards winners, marking the conclusion of the 2025 NASW David Perlman Virtual Mentoring Program.
Named in honor of former NASW president and renowned science journalist David Perlman, the virtual mentoring program was created in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to provide science writing learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students amid disruptions to available summer internships.
The program returned this summer with 47 students matched with NASW member volunteers from a variety of science writing backgrounds for mentorship and support. Mentors and students met for a kickoff event on June 4, and 26 students also opted to complete a reported piece with guidance and edits from their mentors.
Completed student pieces are now published in the program’s 2025 Student Newsroom, offering students a published clip for their budding portfolio — for some, their first-ever reported-and-edited story. Most students have also pitched their stories to external news outlets, many for the first time.
All student-produced stories were considered for the NASW Summer Writing Award, which comes with a free conference registration to ScienceWriters2025. Read by a panel of editors and writers volunteering their time as NASW members, the student entries were judged blind in two rounds for clarity, style, story structure, diversity of sources, and effective use of quotes and data.
The 2025 NASW Summer Writing Award winners are:
- Pamela Appea of Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY (Mentor: Lindsey Leake, freelance) for the story “Breast implants are making people sick: 'It wasn’t worth it'.” One of our judges wrote: “An excellent piece that flows well, has a good range of voices (patient, industry leader, leading expert critic), and amasses key research.”
- Alex Chou of Harvard College (Mentor: Laura Dattaro, freelance) for the story “What Trump’s bill means for end-of-life care.” One of our judges wrote: “At sections, I forgot I wasn't reading an NYT article, so bravo!”
- Hanna Kamperman of Oberlin College (Mentor: David Ehrenstein, American Physical Society) for the story “Musical Triangle’s Sound Waves Reveal New Acoustic Phenomenon.” One of our judges wrote: “The overall piece is clear, concise, interesting and well supported with quotes, explanations and constructive analogies. Nicely done.”
- Celena Lozano of UC Davis (Mentor: Jason Mast, STAT) for the story “When Will Our Kids be Next?: What Baby KJ’s Story Means for the Future of Gene Therapy.” One of our judges wrote: “Great job on this. Thank you for sharing that this was personal to you as well.”
- Jada Summerville of Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Mentor: Stephanie McPherson, freelance) for the story “Moths use the stars as their GPS.” One of our judges wrote: “The author does a great job of setting the scene here. This study has a lot of moving parts and they do a good job of walking us through each element and how it helps us understand the behavior of these moths.”
The 2025 NASW Perlman Virtual Mentoring Program was produced by the NASW Education Committee, with committee co-chair Courtney Gorman (Texas A&M University), committee co-chair Shel Evergreen (freelance). Committee members Chia-Yi Hou (Rockefeller University) served as external publications liaison, Deanna Csomo Ferrell (University of Notre Dame) served as Summer Writing Awards judging coordinator, Corie Lok (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard), Shaun Kirby (University of Rhode Island) served as copy editors for the student newsroom, and Haley Wasserman (Johns Hopkins Medicine) assisted with mentor-mentee matching.
NASW and the Perlman Program organizers share effusive thanks to the over 60 NASW members who took the time to serve as mentors and/or editors, sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge to support up-and-coming science writers — and join NASW in also thanking the science writing colleagues below for their support of the 2025 program:
NASW Members Volunteering as Mentors and Editors
- Alex Carolan, Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Alex Ip, The Xylom
- Alison Gold, Boston University
- Amber Rose, Argonne National Laboratory
- Ariana Remmel, BirdNote
- Betsy Ladyzhets, the Sick Times
- Brittney Miller, Florida Trend
- Cameron Walker, freelance
- Carrie Arnold, freelance
- Chris Curran, Northern Kentucky University
- David Ehrenstein, American Physical Society
- Elliot Richman, FL/NASW/ACS/AACT
- Jackie Rocheleau, freelance
- Jason Mast, STAT
- Jelena Magnin, Swiss Association of Science Journalist
- Jennifer Carr, Breastcancer.org
- Jennifer Welsh, freelance
- Jenny Morber, freelance
- Jill Sakai, Science News Explores
- Kate Greenberg, National Institutes of Health
- Katherine Kornei, freelance
- Laura Avogaro, FRESCI
- Laura Dattaro, freelance
- Lesley Earl, Onoclea Communications
- Lindsay Brownell, Harvard University
- Lindsey Leake, freelance
- Mackenzie White, MIT
- Madeline Bodin, freelance
- Mary Guiden, freelance
- Matthew Hutson, freelance
- Michael Newman, Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Nicole Mlynaryk, Salk Institute
- Rich Monastersky, Nature
- Robin Berghaus, freelance
- Saadeqa Khan, Scientia Pakistan
- Saima Sidik, freelance
- Sarah Nightingale, University of California, Riverside
- Saugat Bolakhe, The Open Notebook
- Shannon Bohle, University of Cambridge
- Shannon Shea, U.S. Department of Energy
- Sirjan Chhatwal, University of Wyoming
- Skylar Knight, Project Drawdown
- Sonali Kudva, Methodist University
- Stephanie McPherson, freelance
- Tyler Santora, freelance
- Uttkarsha Bhosale, Scinapse
- Valerie Hruska, University of Guelph
NASW Members Volunteering as Summer Writing Awards Judges
- Beth Miller, University of Delaware
- Adithi Ramakrishnan, the Associated Press
- Amy Nutt, the Washington Post
- Julia Ostmann, freelance
- Erin Woodward, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- Mark Roth, freelance
- Shine Augustine, Sungkyunkwan University
- A'ndrea Elyse Messer, freelance
- Josh Baxt, Baxt Communications
- Katrina Miller, the New York Times
- Scott Lyon, Princeton University
- Molly Sharlach, Princeton University
- Alexandra Witze, freelance (Nature)
- Heidi Opdyke, Carnegie Mellon University
The NASW Perlman Virtual Mentoring program is named for longtime science writer and past NASW President David Perlman. Dave, who died in 2020 at the age of 101 only three years after his retirement from the San Francisco Chronicle, was a mentor to countless members of the science writing community and always made time for kind and supportive words, especially for early career writers.
Founded in 1934 with a mission to fight for the free flow of science news, NASW is an organization of ~ 2,800 professional journalists, authors, editors, producers, public information officers, students and people who write and produce material intended to inform the public about science, health, engineering, and technology. To learn more, visit www.nasw.org and follow NASW on LinkedIn.
