Judges 2026
Celebrating the 2026 judging panel - the scientists, writers, and communicators behind this year's Award.
The Young Science Writer Award 2026 owes its integrity to the judges who shape it. Each year, a panel of scientists, engineers, journalists, educators, and communicators takes on the work of reading every entry with care. They weigh accuracy against accessibility, ambition against clarity, and curiosity against craft. It is exacting work, and our judges undertake it with generosity and intellectual seriousness.
This year's panel reflects the richness of contemporary science and science communication. Drawn from universities, newsrooms, classrooms, and publishing houses, our judges bring distinct disciplinary expertise and a shared commitment to nurturing the next generation of science writers. Their judgement upholds the standards that have made the YSWA a meaningful early milestone for young writers, and a recognition that carries weight as those writers move forward.
We are delighted to introduce the 2026 judging panel below, and to thank each judge for lending their expertise to the Award.
Alex O'Brien
ABSW Chair
Alex O'Brien is a science writer based in London, UK. Her work has been published by The Times, BBC, Scientific American, New Scientist, The Guardian and others.
In her first non-fiction science book ‘The Truth Detective’ she calls on all of us to regularly interrogate the narratives and information we are given. It’s a book on critical thinking.
She is particularly passionate about teaching critical thinking skills to young people. She spearheaded the UK Young Science Writer Award, which is aimed at students from state-funded schools to help encourage them into a career in STEM.
When she doesn’t write she competes on the global poker circuit.
Jana Bazeed
KCL Student/Roar News Science Editor
Fourth-year MSci Physics and Philosophy student at King's College London and award-winning student journalist with a keen interest in science communication, and the intersection of science, philosophy, and society.
Specialist Writer of the Year, KCLSU Student Media Awards 2024/25
Highly Commended for Best Science or Tech Piece, Student Publication Association National Awards 2025
Highly Commended for Outstanding Commitment in London, Student Publication Association Regional Awards 2025
Jules Howard
Zoology correspondent and author
Jules appears on BBC Radio 4 on shows including Nature Table (with Sue Perkins), Evil Animals (with Russell Kane), Inside Science and The Ultimate Choice. You also might know Jules from occasional slots on BBC Breakfast, BBC Five Live and Sunday Brunch.
Jules's books include Infinite Life (BBC Wildlife / Telegraph Books of the Year, ZSL Clarivate Award runner-up), Wonderdog (winner of the Barker Book Prize) and MEGA! (on the Wainwright Award Shortlist in 2025). Jules regularly for The Guardian, Science Focus Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Anne Rooney
Children's author, science author
Anne Rooney is a full-time writer of trade non-fiction for children and adults and occasional fiction for children. Many of her books are about science, which gives her an excellent excuse to visit dinosaur museums at every opportunity and call it work. She has published somewhere between 200 and 300 books, most of them for children, on a huge variety of topics. She has worked as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow in three different universities, helping students develop their writing skills in genres from picture books to PhD theses.
Mun Keat Loon
International News & Features Editor, The BMJ
Mun Keat Looi is a Features Editor and journalist with 15 years experience in science writing, digital content, longform features, narrative storytelling, growth/audience engagement and social media. He is International Features Editor at The BMJ, lectures on journalism at Imperial College London and is an author on two books, ‘Big Questions in Science: The quest to solve the great unknowns‘ (2013) and the Geek Guide to Life (2016).
Mun-Keat was awarded the silver Rising Star Award at the 2015 British Media Awards and has written and produced news, features, podcasts, and videos for Quartz, The Guardian, BBC Focus, Chemistry World and others. Features he has edited have been critically acclaimed, including three squee moments when recommended in the New Yorker. He was the science editor and fact-checker for acclaimed book Spike (2021) by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja, and the author of the Association of British Science Writers’ ‘How to become a science writer‘ guide.
Mark Leversley
Science Education Writer
Mark has a BSc in biochemistry and a PhD in molecular genetics, and trained as a research scientist before moving into teaching. He has written and developed science education materials for over 25 years, with a particular interest in the 11-16 age group. Clients have included most of the major UK publishers - Pearson Edexcel, HarperCollins, Hodder Eduaction, Cambridge University Press, Dorling Kindersley and Marshall Cavendish. He is the series editor of a number of popular publications, including Edexcel 9-1 GCSE Sciences and five editions of Exploring Science, and has led a panel looking at curriculum design for Pearson. He is based in London.
Anna Claybourne
Science Writer
Anna is a children's book author based in Edinburgh, UK. She writes information books about science and science experiments, nature and wildlife, art and craft, Shakespeare and many other topics, as well as rhyming picture books and retellings of myths and legends.
Richard Fisher
Senior Editor, Aeon & Honorary Professor, UCL
Richard Fisher is a senior science and audience editor at Aeon magazine, an honorary professor in science communication at University College London, and the author of a non-fiction book called The Long View. As an editor, he commissions academics and experienced writers to produce long-form essays for Aeon, as well as guiding the magazine's audience strategy. As a lecturer, he teaches postgraduate students at UCL about science journalism and digital skills. As a writer, he freelances for several international publications, with articles published by the BBC, the New York Times, The Observer, MIT Technology Review, Vox, and New Scientist. He has also written and presented a series of short films for the BBC.
Dr Sarah Bearchell
Freelance Science Writer and Presenter
Sarah Bearchell is a freelance writer who makes science accessible to a range of audiences. She has written activity guides, teaching resources, science kit instructions and a popular science book. She has been writing for Aquila childrens magazine since 2014, with her favourite article being for the Ancient Egyptians issue. How to Mummify a Carrot encouraged readers to create their very own Carrotpatra.
Sarah also writes and presents her own science shows for schools and festivals around the UK. They are always multisensory and participatory, designed so that everyone can join in with exploring giant bubbles or fruit flavoured clouds.
Dr Kathryn Boast
Senior Outreach Manager, Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences, King’s College London
Kathryn is an award-winning science communicator who enjoys splitting her time between projects that bring science to people and people to science.
Kathryn has a background in physics, and enjoys using any tools she can get her hands on to explore and explain the science of our world, from art installations to colouring books.
Tom Whipple
Science Editor at The Times.
He covers everything from archaeology to zoology. He writes news, features, reviews and commentary across the paper, as well as appearing regularly on Times Radio. He joined the paper in 2006, shortly after graduating with a degree in mathematics.
During the course of his job he has visited the tunnels below Cern and the top of Mont Blanc above it. He has seen the inside of the world's hottest sauna and the world's most irradiated nature reserve. He has interviewed Stephen Hawking and Jedward. He has been arrested in three different countries. As well as The Times, he has written for the Guardian and The Economist. He was named science journalist of the year for his coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yasmin Ali
Engineer and Author
Yasmin is a chemical engineer, working in the energy sector. Her first book, Power Up: An Engineer's Adventures into Sustainable Energy, was published by Hodder Press in March 2024. She has also written about engineering and energy for the BBC, Metro, the Huffington Post, and others. She speaks to live audiences of many shapes and sizes, in lots of different settings about what engineering is and what she does. This includes children, teachers, professionals, and the public; in schools, universities, awards ceremonies, and public engagement events.
In recognition of her public engagement work, she was awarded the Women's Engineering Society Young Woman Engineer award in 2013, shortlisted for the WeAreTheCity Rising Star Science and Engineering and PRECIOUS Outstanding Woman in Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths awards in 2017, and shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards - Science category in 2019. In 2020, she was listed as one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering: Sustainability by the Women's Engineering Society, and in 2025 she was a TechWomen100 individual award recipient.
Rachel Brazil
Freelance Science Writer
Rachel has been a freelance science writer for almost a decade.
Based in London, she writes for a variety of publications on scientific areas, including chemistry, materials science, biomedical and pharmaceutical science, and science and innovation policy.
Prior to this, she worked in a number of scientific organizations, including the RSC, the Royal Institution and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta). From 2006–2010 she ran Nesta's national researcher development programme, Crucible. Focused on encouraging creativity and stimulating interdisciplinary encounters between early career researchers, Crucible has now been adopted by a number of UK Universities.
Rachel herself has an interdisciplinary academic background, with degrees in chemistry and a PhD in archaeological conservation. She is also a trainer for the British Council’s Researcher Connect programme, teaching in China, Russia and Mexico.
Isabel Thomas
Science Writer and Children's Author
Isabel Thomas is a science writer and children’s author. She has written more than 280 books about science and nature for young audiences, which have been translated into more than 25 languages. She also write features for publications like The Week Junior Science+Nature, the Guardian and The Bookseller, and create resources and events for outreach projects, inspiring children from diverse backgrounds to pursue education and careers in science and the arts.
Most of all, she loves speaking to live audiences about science and the arts – from packed theatre shows at festivals around the world, to focused and inclusive school workshops. She has even appeared twice on BBC Women’s Hour from a duvet-tent in her living room!
Anna Demming
Freelance Science Writer
Anna completed her PhD in nanophotonics in 2006, and in the same year began work with Springer Nature (then Nature Publishing Group) in Tokyo writing and copy editing front half content for Nature Photonics and the Nature China website.
After moving back to the UK in 2008 she worked for IOP Publishing, writing editorials and managing manuscript review for journals including Nanotechnology. She later moved into the journalism team at IOP Publishing, working first on their title nanotechweb.org and later Physics World.
She spent two years working with New Scientist as a features editor, primarily in the physical sciences, as well as contributing to their book reviews, podcasts and live events, which she really enjoyed.
Deborah Cohen
ABSW Board Secretary
Deborah was the Editor of the BBC Radio Science Unit for many years, where she was responsible for programmes on Radio 4 and the World Service such as The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Life Scientific, Inside Science, All in the Mind, Health Check and Discovery. She has lectured on science broadcasting to a variety of audiences, judged book and essay prizes and awarded grants for public engagement with science. She studied Physics a long time ago, is a Life Member of the ABSW and received an MBE for services to science and media in 2009.
Dr Hephzi Tagoe
CEO GhScientific
Hephzi is a multi-award-winning science communicator, skin biologist and charity director at GhScientific, a science communication organisation focused on community engagement with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Her work focuses on empowering young people from under-served communities to improve their science capital by providing opportunities to enable them to make informed decisions. As part of her 2019 Churchill Fellowship, she travelled to Finland and Ghana to research informal methods of science education. She looked at two widely contrasting systems and how students and their communities engage with science in the different settings, the outcome of which would inform our work with our young people and the community.
Andy Ridgeway
Board member (co-opted)
Andy Ridgway is a former Deputy Editor of BBC Science Focus and he continues to write, his work appearing in Focus, New Scientist, The Economist and Men's Health. He is a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University of the West of England in Bristol and programme leader of their internationally renowned MSc in Science Communication. He was UWE's Principal Investigator on the Europe-wide online science communication research project RETHINK, which considered current challenges such as misinformation and trust. Andy has spent several years as a member of the judging team of the Max Perutz Science Writing Award run by the Medical Research Council.
Dr Michael Leach
Wildlife author and photographer.
Michael Leach has travelled to all 7 continents and worked with many of the world's most charismatic animals - polar bears in the Arctic, gorillas in central Africa, lemurs in Madagascar, sperm whales in the mid-Atlantic, monkeys in the Amazon, penguins in the Antarctic and elephants in Kenya. He is the author of 50+ books and has given more than 4000 illustrated talks.
Katrina Wesencraft
Science Writer & Content Creator
Katrina is a freelance science writer and content creator based in Glasgow, UK. She likes to write about space, AI and robotics. The stories she is most interested in telling are solution-focused or contain a tough ethical question.
Her stories have been published by NASA, SciDev.Net, Impakter, The Conversation, and others. Check out my portfolio where I share my favourite published work.
James Mitchem
Publisher, DK Children’s
As a publisher in the DK Children's team, James has spent nearly 20 years creating illustrated nonfiction books for children aged 7 and up. His passion lies in bringing knowledge and wonder to young readers through visually stunning and informative books, collaborating with talented authors, designers, and illustrators to shape ideas into beautiful and inspiring works.
