Stories describing what can happen when science is manipulated or misapplied are among the winners of the 2025 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards. Winning journalists also did stories on science at its best, revealing new understanding about the natural world.
Independent panels of science journalists select the winners of the awards, which are administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and endowed by The Kavli Foundation. There is a Gold Award ($5,000) and Silver Award ($3,500) for each of the eight categories. The global awards program drew entries from 67 countries this year, and 55% of the more than 1,100 entries were from outside the United States.
Calli McMurray, a staff reporter for The Transmitter -- an online outlet that covers neuroscience -- won the Gold Award in the Small Outlet category for her story about what can happen when a scientist commits research fraud by manipulating data. She examined the impact not only on the scientist's career, but also the profound effects it can have on others in the same laboratory who may spend years trying to replicate the falsified research, unaware that the task is futile.
Llewellyn Smith, Kelly Thomson, Robert Kirwan and Chris Schmidt won the Gold Award in the Video Spot News/Feature Reporting category for their PBS -- NOVA report on the misuse of dangerous race science in clinical algorithms used to diagnose and treat patients. For many years, these algorithms incorporated equations grounded in outdated pseudoscience about racial differences. One result was the use of a corrective race factor in the algorithm used to calculate kidney function. Black patients were placed lower on lengthy waiting lists for kidney transplants while white patients with similar levels of kidney function were prioritized. This is the third time Smith has won the AAAS Kavli award.
Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto of NOTUS, a newsroom covering politics and policy in Washington, won the Silver Award in the Small Outlet category for first reporting that a "Make America Healthy Again" commission report was "rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions." Seven of the cited sources didn't appear to exist at all. The AAAS Kavli judges praised the initiative of the young reporters in breaking a story that major news outlets further investigated, including a finding by The Washington Post that phantom studies in the report likely were generated by an artificial intelligence program.
Max G. Levy won the Gold Award in the Magazine category for a captivating piece in Quanta, an online science magazine, about the developing field of electrostatic ecology. He lured readers in with a tale about scientist Victor Ortega-Jiménez, who stumbled onto the electrostatic properties of spider webs while playing with his 4-year-old daughter.
Isabelle Groc won the Silver Award in the Magazine category for a story in Canadian Geographic on the importance of mudflats south of Vancouver, B.C. for migrating sandpipers and the discovery that the birds were using their hairy tongues to scrape a nutrient-rich biofilm off the surface of the mudflat.
Anna Louie Sussman won the Gold Award in the Science Reporting In-Depth category for a three-part series in The New York Times on human embryos and the complex scientific, ethical and legal questions that surround them. Sussman spent two and a half years on the reporting project, which received support from the Pulitzer Center and the Alicia Patterson Foundation.
Of the 16 awards, seven went to international entrants and nine to United States entrants. There were winning entrants from Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The winners will receive their award plaques in a ceremony at the 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting in Phoenix in February.
"It is more important than ever that the public understand how science works, the benefits it has brought, if sometimes fitfully, and the promise it holds for a better understanding of the world in which we live," said Sudip Parikh, CEO of AAAS and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. "These award winners have done stories that both explain and critique the scientific enterprise." He added, "That enterprise is global, and it is noteworthy that the awards program received entries this year from 67 countries."
Here is the list of the winners of the 2025 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards:
Science Reporting -- Large Outlet
Gold Award
Marina Fridman, Rolv Christian Topdahl, Stian Espeland, Ronald Fossåskaret, Thomas Ianke and Astrid Rommetveit
"The flames of Equinor"
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK)
August 26, 2024
Silver Award
Tess McClure
"The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?"
The Guardian
November 28, 2024
Science Reporting -- Small Outlet
Gold Award
Calli McMurray
"A scientific fraud. An investigation. A lab in recovery."
The Transmitter
October 4, 2024
Silver Award
Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto
"The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don't Exist"
NOTUS
May 29, 2025
"The MAHA Report Has Been Updated With Fresh Errors"
NOTUS
May 30, 2025
Science Reporting -- In-Depth
Gold Award
Anna Louie Sussman
"What do We Owe This Cluster of Cells?"
The New York Times
March 25, 2025
"Should Human Life be Optimized?"
The New York Times
April 1, 2025
"Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither?"
The New York Times
April 8, 2025
Silver Award
Jelmer Mommers and Thomas Oudman
"Sound the alarm or seek better evidence: the scientific battle behind climate tipping points"
De Correspondent (The Netherlands)
November 11, 2024
Magazine
Gold Award
Max G. Levy
"The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology"
Quanta
September 30, 2024
Silver Award
Isabelle Groc
"The magic in the mud: sandpipers' migration superfood"
Canadian Geographic
February 21, 2025
Spot News/Feature Reporting (20 minutes or less)
Gold Award
Llewellyn Smith, Kelly Thomson, Robert Kirwan and Chris Schmidt
"When Machines Prescribe"
PBS - NOVA
April 30, 2025
Silver Award
Adam Cole
"How dangerous could one beer be?"
Howtown
January 10, 2025
Video In-Depth Reporting (more than 20 minutes)
Gold Award
Gregor Čavlović, Derek Muller and Zoe Heron
"How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet"
Veritasium
May 14, 2025
Silver Award
Cosima Dannoritzer
"Sense of Smell: In Search of the Lost Meaning"
Découpages and Galaxie, producers, for ARTE.tv (France)
February 8, 2025
Audio
Gold Award
Flora Lichtman, Annette Heist, Pajau Vangay and David Sanford
"The Leap" series on Science Friday | A production of the Hypothesis Fund
"I Was Considered A Nobody" May 12, 2025
"The Volcano Whisperer" May 19, 2025
"Garbage In, Garbage Out" June 16, 2025
Silver Award
Ben Motley and Anand Jagatia
"CrowdScience: Is anything truly random?"
BBC World Service
February 14, 2025
Children's Science News
Gold Award
Avery Elizabeth Hurt
"Are plants intelligent? It seems to depend on how you define it"
Science News Explores
November 21, 2024
Silver Award
Júlia Dias Carneiro and Allyson Shaw