Science Journalism Workshop to Launch at IAS
Applications now closed
We live in a world where science, innovation, and technology impact our daily lives in increasingly profound ways. But if both science and the society in which it is intimately embedded are to flourish, it is necessary for the latest groundbreaking developments to be made accessible and intelligible to the average citizen. Science journalists play a significant role in the global circulation of this scientific scholarship, generated at institutions such as the Institute for Advanced Study.
To provide the opportunity for prospective and early-career science journalists to hone their skills in an intensive, immersive environment, IAS will host a new Science Journalism Workshop from July 10–15, 2023. During the week-long program, two or three instructional sessions will be held each day, led by the program directors and a roster of guest instructors who will join the group for one day each. Confirmed guest instructors include Christie Aschwanden, Graham Farmelo, Sabrina Imbler, John Rennie, Ashley Smart, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, and George Musser.
The instructional sessions will cover a range of subjects, including structuring stories, pitching, interviewing, the logistics of freelancing, scientific biography/profile writing, developing a beat, and covering controversial topics. In the afternoons, time will be dedicated to workshopping participants’ writing in group sessions. Throughout the week, attendees and instructors will convene for meals and other social activities. Participants will also have the chance to meet and network with world-leading IAS scientists.
Click here to download a provisional schedule for the workshop.
The program will be led by Natalie Wolchover, Senior Editor at Quanta Magazine and past IAS Director's Visitor (2017), alongside author Siobhan Roberts, a regular contributor to the New York Times and a frequent IAS Director's Visitor since 2007.
Natalie Wolchover, Program Director
Natalie Wolchover is a senior editor at Quanta Magazine covering the physical sciences. Her writing has won numerous awards, including the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting, and has been featured in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best Writing on Mathematics. She was Cornell University’s Distinguished Visiting Journalist for Spring 2022, a Director’s Visitor at IAS in 2017, and a Writer in Residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in 2016. Wolchover has roots in London, England, and the Texas Hill Country and now lives in New York City with her wife and daughter. She is currently working on a book about the search for the unified theory of nature.
Siobhan Roberts, Associate Director
Siobhan Roberts is a Canadian author and science journalist, and a frequent Director’s Visitor at IAS, where she wrote her most recent book, Genius at Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times, covering mostly mathematics and related realms; she wrote a profile of the applied mathematician Ingrid Daubechies for the New York Times Magazine. Roberts is working on a biography of the group theorist and mathematical logician Verena Huber-Dyson, which is forthcoming from Pantheon. Among other awards, she is a recipient of the Euler Prize for expanding the public’s view of mathematics.
Funding is provided for meals, lodging, program costs, and travel to and from Princeton. The workshop is funded through the generous financial support of the Simons Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Questions? Email sciencejournalism@ias.edu