The National Association of Science Writers congratulates Chiara Villanueva, Emma Smith, Jamie Jiang, Julie Lee, Olivia Maule, and Pragathi Ravi on receiving a 2026 NASW Diversity Summer Fellowship.
Trainees in science writing and journalism must balance financial needs with new challenges, especially amid economic and journalism industry impacts. To ease this journey for students and early career professionals — and to encourage new talents of diverse identities and lived experiences — NASW began offering the Diversity Summer Fellowship program in 2017.
Led by the NASW Diversity Committee, the program provides supplemental income for trainees to pursue their chosen summer internship. Applicants must have been accepted for training in any medium by a newsroom or communications office; the NASW funds then supplement any stipend they receive from their summer employer. Awardees receive $3,000 — plus a one-year complimentary membership to NASW, which provides mentoring opportunities, job listings, and other professional development resources.
This year’s application review committee consisted of NASW member volunteers Elliot Richman, Joe Rojas-Burke, Nicholas St. Fleur- chair of NASW's Diversity Committee, and Priyanka Runwal. NASW thanks these volunteers for making the Diversity Summer Fellowship program possible.
Photo by Emily Harwitz
Chiara Villanueva (she/they)
University of California, Santa Cruz
Internship site: Quanta Magazine
Science, Health and Reporting Program at New York University
Internship site: Sierra magazine
Photo by Alice Chou
MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing
Internship site: Balance Media
Photo by Erin Malsbury
Columbia University
Internship site: Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
Photo by Rambo Talabong
University of California, Santa Cruz
Internship site: Live Science
Pragathi Ravi (she/her)
Science, Health and Reporting Program at New York University
Internship site: The Xylom
Founded in 1934 with a mission to fight for the free flow of science news, NASW is an organization of ~2,400 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 and Bluesky.
