Silver AAAS Award 2025 for ABSW member Tess McClure
Tess McClure's work was previously awarded ABSW's Feature of the Year – general audience in 2025.
Tess McClure, an ABSW member and journalist at The Guardian, won the Silver Award in the ‘Science Reporting - Large Outlet’ category at the 2025 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards. The announcement was made on 13 November.
“I'm so honoured by this award,” Tess McClure said, according to the AAAS website. “My particular thanks go to Gergana Daskalova, the scientist at the heart of the piece, who is an exceptional communicator of science and its ramifications for human and non-human worlds — and to the many scientists who have answered my questions with patience and generosity.”
McClure, who is also the commissioning editor of The Guardian's section on biodiversity and the nature crisis, The Age of Extinction, was recognised for her article, ‘The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?’, published by The Guardian, on 28 November 2024.
Judge Amanda Buckiewicz, a science journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, praised the article for its coverage of the history of ecosystem management and the role of humans, for better or worse. “A great story,” she said, with a “super interesting character” in Gergana Daskalova, as stated on the AAAS website.
The same article entered the 2025 ABSW Awards, granting Tess McClure the ‘Feature of the Year – general audience’ award. The ABSW Awards judges said, “With beautiful writing, this feature upends conventional thinking about the effects of humans on ecosystems. Clear yet lyrical language, without dumbing down, on what the abandonment of Eastern European villages has meant for nature.”
Anand Jagatia, together with Ben Motley, won the Silver Award in the Audio category with their piece, “CrowdScience: Is anything truly random?”, broadcast by the BBC World Service, on 14 February 2025. According to the AAAS website, judge Larry Engel, a professor of film and media arts at American University, praised the humorous yet well-researched and produced CrowdScience programme. “This marvellous report makes me wonder,” Engel said. “Creating wonder or curiosity in someone is a sign of excellent science communication.”
Jagatia, together with Caroline Steel, won the 2022 Royal Society Audio Award, promoted by the ABSW, with the piece, “If a tree falls in a forest… does it make a sound?”, broadcast by the BBC World Service.
The Association of British Science Writers congratulates all the winners of the 2025 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
