The Northwest Science Writers Association is pleased to announce the winners of our 2016 career development awards: Freelance journalists Wudan Yan and Chris Solomon.
Wudan is an early-career journalist who moved to Seattle at the beginning of 2016, but her location and beat are hard to pin down. She has explored Thailand’s healthcare for undocumented migrants, tracked how microbes swap genes in the human gut, and is chasing supply chain accountability in Southeast Asia. Her bylines range from The New Yorker and NPR to JSTOR Daily and The Scientist. Wudan will use her $1,000 NSWA award to build up her data journalism chops at the 2017 National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.
After a stint at the Seattle Times, Chris became a freelance journalist in 2002. Since then, he has written about the hidden language of the forest, exploring the least-visited park in the National Parks system, and Seattle’s own “Bike Batman.” His beat ranges from science and the environment to travel and sports. In addition to being a contributing editor at Outside and Runner’s World magazines, Chris has written for publications including The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Scientific American, and National Geographic. He will be taking his storytelling skills to the next level when he uses his NSWA award to attend the 2016 Latest in Longform: Berkeley Narrative Journalism Conference at the University of California, Berkeley.
Congratulations to both our winners.
NSWA awards subcommittee
Ashley Braun
David Ansley
Wayt Gibbs