Professor Holly Stocking's J554 Science Writing class traveled to San Francisco in February to attend and report the news at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Below are brief reports on attendees, alumni and other conferences.


Science writing’s broad appeal
J554 Science Writing appeals to both journalism graduate students and to those from other disciplines who believe science writing offers a way to combine their interests and careers.

Students who made the trip to San Francisco were journalism masters’ students Sandra Ameny, Thomas Fecarotta, Maria Karapetyan, Ken Kingery and Kit Newkirk.

Accompanying them were Ben Blackman, Erin Brenneman and Andrea Gilman, all science graduate students; creative writing graduate student Roberta Kwok, whose undergraduate degree was in biology; and special student Susan Linville, who has a Ph.D. in biology.

Sara Schrock, a graduate student in biology who took J554 last spring, attended the meeting using her own funds.

Matt Cunningham, an undergraduate journalism major who has written science stories for the IDS, attended on a National Association of Science Writers scholarship.


Alumni presence
IU School of Journalism alumni show up everywhere, especially at conventions where media flock for stories.

Students traveling to AAAS met with former science writing alumna Chelsea Wald (M.A. ’04), who produces Science Update, a nationally syndicated science radio program for the AAAS, and David Bricker (M.A. ‘04), a science writer for IU in Bloomington. A few students also talked to with Linda Billings (Ph.D. ‘05), who earned her Ph.D. in science communication at IU and works as a space science writer for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in Washington. Billings presented some of her research at the meeting.


Other science conferences
One J554 student didn’t let scheduling conflicts interfere with her off-campus experience. Journalism graduate student Joice Biazoto was unable to join her classmates at the San Francisco conference, but the week before that trip, she participated in her own science writing field experience. With school support, she attended a scientific meeting at the University of California Los Angeles.

On her return, she prepared stories for publication on her conference experience covering the presentation on “Evolutionary Change in Human Altered Environments.”

Read "Students attend, cover science conference."