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OUR GANGby Jeff Grabmeier Captaining a new ship. After seven years at the American Chemical Society, Denise Graveline is moving on. Denise, who was director of communications, is fulfilling a longstanding pair of goals: to run her own communications consultancy, focusing on training, coaching, strategy, and creative approaches to making information public; and return to her journalistic roots, writing books and articles on a variety of topics. Her new company is called “don’t get caught-creative communications consulting.” She welcomes referrals and ideas. Denise’s new e-mail is dgraveline1@earthlink.net. NASW member Nancy Blount has taken the reins as acting director of communications at ACS. Nancy is at n_blount@acs.org. Their ship has come in. NASW members are recognized for their great work well beyond the confines of our organization. Take, for example, the American Society of Journalists and Authors’ (ASJA) 2004 Writing Awards, which were presented in April in New York City. No fewer than four NASW members were among the 16 who were honored. A special honor went to Ruth Winter, a past president of ASJA, who received the Career Achievement Award (more details on page 28). Freelancer Dan Ferber won ASJA’s award for a magazine profile for his article “The Man Who Mistook His Girlfriend for a Robot,” published in Popular Science in September 2003. Honorable Mention for the Donald Robinson Award for Investigative Journalism went to Claudia Dreifus for her article “Women on Death Row,” published in the Spring 2003 issue of Ms. Magazine. Cheryl Platzman Weinstock won the 2004 Outstanding Service Article Award for “What a Difference Five Years Makes,” published in More in September 2003. In addition, Cheryl’s latest article on women and heart disease was the subject of a talk she moderated on May 6 at the Westport, CT, Barnes and Noble. It was a special program to alert women about their risks of heart disease, and was sponsored by the Westport Weston Health District, Woman’s Day, and Barnes & Noble. Setting sail for success. The Society of Professional Journalists honored Neil Osterweil with one of its 2003 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for Excellence in Journalism. Neil and three co-authors won in the online, non-deadline category for their four-part series for WebMD titled “Wired Health: At Your Fingertips.” The special report helped consumers to understand the beneficial relationship between technology and medical care. Neil is at osterbar@gis.net. All in the same boat. In addition to the nautical theme, there is another thread running through this exciting episode of “Our Gang”: NASW’s award-winning membership. Here’s yet another example. Three groups of university-based NASW members took the spotlight in the 2004 Circle of Excellence Awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Not surprisingly, the teams won in the “Research, Medicine and Science News Writing” category. The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research received the Gold Medal. Their winning entry included articles by science writers Rick Borchelt, Kelli Whitlock, David Cameron, and Melissa Withers. Purdue University’s team of Jennifer Cutraro, Chad Boutin, and Emil Venere won the Silver Medal. The Bronze Medal went to Georgia Tech and their staff writers John Toon and Jane Sanders, and freelancers Rick Robinson and Renee Twombly. A series that rocked the boat. Science magazine’s Martin Enserink was honored with the American Society for Microbiology 2004 Public Communications Award. Martin and a co-author received the award for a two-part series, “SARS in China.” It focused on China’s initial denial of the emerging epidemic and insistence that the cause was the chlamydia bacterium, despite research showing otherwise, and it provides an in-depth look at where the virus originated and how it developed in humans. Congratulate Martin at menserin@aaas.org. Plumbing the depths of epigenetics. Sue Goetinck Ambrose, a science writer for The Dallas Morning News, was one of the winners of the 2004 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award. Sue was honored for her coverage of epigenetics, an emerging and still mysterious field of genetic research. The award honors the most insightful and enterprising reporting on the basic biomedical sciences in print or broadcast journalism during the award year. Kudos to Sue at sgoetinck@dallasnews.com. More honors, if you catch my drift. Another award-winning writer at The Dallas Morning News is Alexandra Witze, who was the 2003 recipient of the Society of American Archaeology’s Gene Stuart Award. The award is given in recognition of outstanding efforts to enhance public understanding of archaeology. Alexandra won for a series of articles published in the Morning News in 2003. Alexandra can be found at awitze@dallasnews.com. A mainstay of NASW. Rick Borchelt, communications and public affairs director at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, has been named Reports Editor for the journal Science Communication, one of two peer-reviewed scholarly journals in the field of public understanding of science and technology. Science Communication is an interdisciplinary journal that unites international scholarly exploration of three broad but interrelated topics: communication within research communities, communication of scientific and technical information to the public, and science and technology communications policy. Rick is at borchelt@wi.mit.edu. Hitting the deck running. After having a baby in January, Karen Blum resigned her position as assistant director of media relations at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions to pursue a new, dual career of mom and freelance writer. Karen says she welcomes freelance assignments and adult conversation! Send those to her at karen_blum@comcast.net. A good cut to their jibs. J. Madeleine Nash of Time and freelance writer Kevin Krajick have won the American Geophysical Union’s 2004 science journalism awards. Madeline won the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism-news for her article “Fireproofing the Forests,” which appeared in Time (Aug. 18, 2003). Kevin becomes the first person to win the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism-Features twice (first time in 1998). This year’s award is for “Defusing Africa’s Killer Lakes,” which appeared in Smithsonian magazine in September 2003. Kevin is at krk4@columbia.edu and Madeline is at madnash@ameritech.net. Tack on another award. One of this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prizes went to NASW member Philip Hilts. Hilts won in the Science and Technology category for his book Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business and One Hundred Years of Regulation. The book was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2003. Phil is now working on a book about advances (and setbacks) in global public health, to be published by Penguin in 2005. Philip’s coordinates are philts@aol.com. Full steam ahead! Freelancer Kelli Miller was recently named executive editor of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Focus on Healthy Aging national newsletter. She will continue to freelance for non-competing media. Kelli is at kelli@newscience.tv. On an even keel. Valerie Brown quit her day job last summer and is happy to report that she has actually been able to survive on freelancing for a whole year. One of the things that has kept her busy was writing two reports, one for the World Wildlife Fund (Causes for Concern) on the effects of industrial chemicals on wildlife. This report covered the chemicals that would be regulated by the forthcoming REACH legislation in the European Union and is available at http://www.wwf.org.uk/chemicals. This work led to a second, similar report for the International Joint Commission on Boundary Waters summarizing recent research on the effects of industrial chemicals. You can find Valerie at vjane@teleport.com. Hoisting a new sail. Freelancer Star Lawrence has been selected to write a biweekly column for the Chandler, AZ, section of The Arizona Republic. She will be writing about local issues, but adds “I can make almost anything local! Science might even creep in.” Star is at JKelLaw@aol.com. Going overboard with work! Joel Shurkin continues to stay busy with a variety of projects. He is now writing part time for the Baltimore Jewish Times, a local independent newspaper. He reports, “It is the toughest audience in the world. Everybody knows more about everything than I do and are never reluctant to say so.” Joel is also working on a book with an Israeli psychologist on suicide bombing, and continues to be the media contact for the National Center for Disaster Psychology and Terrorism. You can join the chorus of comments on Joel’s articles at shurkin@mac.com. We see smooth sailing ahead. Freelance writer Bob Roehr has been appointed to a three-year term on the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee. PubMed Central is a digital archive of life sciences journal literature that is housed at the NIH National Library of Medicine (NLM). Its principal goals are to promote open, free, and sustained access to the published scientific literature. Contact Bob at bobroehr@aol.com. # Jeff Grabmeier is assistant director of research communications at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Send news about your life to Jeff at Grabmeier@nasw.org. |
