Students awarded Pulitzer fellowships for health investigations
Two Boston University graduate students will conduct in-depth investigations into mosquito-borne illness in Louisiana and, separately, the pregnancy experiences of transgender and non-binary people, thanks to fellowships they received this month from the Pulitzer Center.
Daphne Mark, a first-year graduate student in journalism at COM, will use her fellowship to compare Louisiana’s relatively successful efforts to limit illness linked to mosquitos with interventions attempted around the world.
“Summer is the height of mosquito season,” Daphne wrote in her proposal. “Armed with sociologist Arlie Russel Hoschild’s Strangers in their Own Land, a meager Cajun French vocabulary, and my great uncle T’Boy’s Couyon wisdom, I plan to visit my family’s ancestral home in Calcasieu Parish to meet with spray truck drivers, West Nile patients, and representatives of Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab.”
Rachael Sorcher, a student pursuing her master’s at the School of Public Health, will “explore the pregnancy experiences of TNB (transgender and non-binary) individuals to shed light on the interpersonal and systemic challenges this population may face during a life-changing event, and how some physicians are providing respectful and responsive maternity care,” she wrote in her proposal.
“This story will amplify TNB individuals’ voices above the political noise to deepen understanding of their unique yet similar pregnancy needs and how physicians can provide just care,” Sorcher wrote.
The Pulitzer Center is a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to raising awareness of underreported global issues through direct support for quality journalism across all media platforms and a program of outreach and education to schools and universities.
The fellowships were awarded by the Pulitzer Center as part of its partnership with Boston University’s Program for Global Health Storytelling, led by faculty at the College of Communication and the School for Public Health.
