Honoring gifted science writers

Fred Dylla, Lee Billings, Alexandra Witze, and Jason Bardi at a special AAS press reception in honor of the 2015 AIP Science Communication Awards

Each year, AIP recognizes authors who excel in the art of communicating science. The 2014 awardees were announced in the fall, and the winners for three of the four categories received their awards earlier this month at the national AAS and AAPT meetings. 

Several dozen journalists came to a special reception at the AAS meeting in Seattle, WA, to recognize the work of Alexandra Witze and Lee Billings. Witze took the award in the “Articles” category for her essay “Spinning the Core,” published in Science News magazine. Witze draws readers into the research process as scientists across the world seek to understand more about Earth’s magnetism and magnetism on other planets by creating dynamos, which mimic the earth’s inner core. In doing so, they are hoping to predict experimentally what may happen to our magnetic field, including possible flipping. Billings won in the “Books” category for his work, Five Billion Years of Solitude: the Search for Life Among the Stars, published by Current/Penguin. Billings gives his readers an inside account of the leading astronomers and planetary scientists quest to find another Earth floating out there somewhere.

Adrian Dingle, 2014 AIP Science Communication Award winner

The AAPT Winter Meeting proved to be the perfect venue to bestow the science writing award in the “Writing for Children” category to Adrian Dingle for his book, How to Make a Universe with 92 Ingredients: An Electrifying Guide to the Elements, published by Owlkids. Dingle tackles questions, both big and small, such as what gives comets their tails and how matches ignite, and encourages readers to discover more about the world around them with suggestions for hands-on activities.

The final awardee, for the New Media category, is Alok Jha for his piece, “Stephen Hawking’s big ideas . . . made simple,” to be awarded in an upcoming ceremony.

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Witze, Billings, and Dingle awarded for their writings