In the spring of 2021, MIT Technology Assessment introduced a fellowship centered on checking out the different means in which technological innovation and info were getting made use of to tackle troubles of inequality for the duration of the pandemic. 

With the support of the Heising-Simons Foundation—a Los Altos and San Francisco, California-centered family members foundation that supports projects centered on local climate and thoroughly clean power, neighborhood and chance, education and learning, human rights, and science—our connect with aimed to discover journalists who could report thoughtfully and with perception into the systematic, technological, and challenges covid has brought to under-protected communities. Fellows every single obtain at minimum $7,500 to conduct their do the job and the prospect to publish in the world’s oldest know-how publication.

We are very pleased to announce the recipients of the fellowship are:

LaVonne Roberts, an impartial journalist masking science, wellbeing, and technologies from New York, will be creating about the rollout of immersive, large-tech recharge rooms for wellness industry experts as a pilot plan expands from medical doctors to other frontline clinic workers. Her perform stood out from the group, mentioned the judges, with a distinct effect and persuasive brief.

Elaine Shelly, a freelance writer and documentary maker primarily based in Ga, is examining the impression of lengthy covid on Black Individuals, and discovering how we could better comprehend the condition and its cultural impacts. The judges hoped her work could fill in a missing element of current pandemic protection. “Focusing on the lives of Black women—and her possess expertise of very long-phrase indicators of covid-19—Elaine Shelly’s reporting will dive into the overlapping burdens of chronic illness, clinical racism, and misogynoir,” they reported.

Chandra Whitfield, a author and multimedia journalist from Colorado, will be analyzing how Black females were being specifically affected by the intersection of the pandemic and domestic abuse—and wanting at how to obtain related facts. The judges stated she had “identified an crucial public plan issue” and crafted a proposal “with a sense of goal and urgency.”

And our newsroom fellowship goes to Rob Chaney, who covers atmosphere and science at Montana’s Missoulian. Rob and his colleagues have been exploring the outcomes of covid response and a surge in federal economic guidance in Montana’s indigenous communities, notably in the Blackfeet Reservation. The judges agreed that his proposal was the “clear winner” in its category.

Analyzing entries was a panel of skilled journalists and scientists intimately acquainted with the concerns at stake: Alexis Madrigal, cohost of KQED community radio’s Discussion board Krystal Tsotsie, a geneticist at Vanderbilt University and board member of the Indigenous BioData Consortium Mark Rochester, an knowledgeable investigative journalist and running editor of the San Diego nonprofit newsroom Inewsource and Seema Yasmin, a journalist, medical doctor, and director of the Stanford Health Interaction Initiative.