Ann Gibbons Receives 2019 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News

Ann Gibbons was awarded the 2019 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held on 11 December 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. The award is given “for excellence in news reporting about the Earth and space sciences, with a deadline of one week or less.”

Sarah Kaplan Receives 2019 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–Features

Sarah Kaplan was awarded the 2019 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–Features at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held on 11 December 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. The award is given “for excellence in feature reporting about the Earth and space sciences, with a deadline of more than one week.”

There Were No Medals To Be Won

While in modern times excellence in science is often acknowledged with a prize medal, this was not the case in the Renaissance. Despite the fact that the Italian Renaissance saw a remarkable revival of medal casting, there were no medals to be won in the Renaissance for originality and scientific priority. Rather, professional success was determined by the ability to win public disputations and debate contested topics. This article illustrates how this mode of knowledge production, which reached its peak in the second half of the sixteenth century, was deeply rooted in the culture of verbal and physical duelling that developed in Italy around that time. Transforming the culture of academic disputation into one of public spectacle, the sixteenth century saw scientific practitioners make careers out of controversy and polemical exchange. From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, this model of knowledge production was slowly superseded by more moderate exchanges and collaborations.

Hall Receives 2018 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News

Shannon Hall received the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held 12 December 2018 in Washington, D. C. The award recognizes a journalist for “excellence in science news reporting, defined as work prepared with a deadline of one week or less.”