The Knight Science Journalism program (styled as "KSJ@MIT") offers 9-month research fellowships, based at its headquarters at the

MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. The school has over 20 departments, department-level programs, and f ...

, to elite staff and freelance journalists specializing in coverage of science and technology, medicine, or the environment. Fellows are chosen from an international application pool in a competitive process each spring, and reside in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

, for two semesters of audited coursework and research at MIT, Harvard, and surrounding institutions. The program is directed by

Deborah Blum Deborah Blum (born October 19, 1954) is an American science journalist and the director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

. KSJ@MIT has hosted more than 300 fellows from a wide range of national and international publications, including

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

, the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...

ABC News ABC News is the journalism, news division of the American broadcast network American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other progra ...

, and CNN. Eligible applicants can work for print, broadcast or the web as reporters, writers, editors, or producers. In 2016, the program launched an editorially independent digital science magazine called ''

Undark Undark was a trade name for luminous paint made with a mixture of radioactive radium and zinc sulfide, as produced by the U.S. Radium Corporation between 1917 and 1938. It was used primarily in watch and clock dials. The people working in th ...

''.

History

KSJ@MIT was launched in 1983 by

Victor McElheny Victor King McElheny (born 6 September 1935) is an American science writer and journalist, who has covered a wide variety of topics, including the Apollo lunar landing program, molecular biology, astronomy, science in Antarctica, and environmental ...

. It is administratively a part of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) located in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. The program and its activities is primarily funded by an endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Additional funding has been provided by the

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support ...

, the

Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitt ...

, and the Kavli Foundation.

Format

The nine-month program is designed to offer selected fellows a year away from deadlines to pursue intellectual enrichment, develop new sources, and explore aspects of science and its interaction with economic, political, and cultural forces that would ordinarily be out of reach for a working science journalist. Fellows typically audit courses on a non-graded, non-credit basis at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and other nearby institutions including

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original c ...

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learnin ...

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in Charlotte, North C ...

, and

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

References

External links

Eligibility requirements for Knight Science Journalism Fellowships
{{MIT American journalism awards Awards established in 1983 1983 establishments in Massachusetts Massachusetts Institute of Technology

History

Format

See also

References

External links