Founded in 2018, and based in Atlanta, The Xylom is a non-profit, Gen-Z-run newsroom covering the communities influencing and being shaped by science.
Our reporting revolves around three questions:
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"How can science look more like us?"
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"How are scientists shaped by what happens outside of the lab?"
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"How do people respond to the changing world through science?"
We do so through an award-winning collection of original personal essays, longform science features, and resources for early-career science professionals. We also send out a twice-monthly newsletter curating the best science stories in the American South and beyond.
Our writers have gone on to win awards such as the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications, AAAS Mass Media Fellowships, and the National Association of Science Writers Diversity Reporting Grant.
We also pride in:
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Our diverse contributors (75% women/ non-binary; 41% people of color in 2022),
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Our expertise in multimedia and data storytelling, and
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Our capacity for multicultural content (6 languages published in 2022).
As a publication with a global footprint, regional presence in the American South, and a local focus on communities influencing and impacted by science, we value your submissions and donations that enable us to be responsive and nimble. Together, we can grow science into a space for everyone. #xforxylom
MEET THE TEAM
ALEX IP Editor In Chief
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Alex is the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Xylom, a student-led newsroom exploring the communities influencing and shaped by science. Alex recently led a team to translate the KSJ Science Editing Handbook into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified); he is currently finishing up his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, United States. Alex will join the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing in Cambridge, Mass. in Fall 2023.
ADVISORY BOARD
Betsy Ladyzhets is a science, health, and data journalist focused on COVID-19. She runs the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, a publication that provides news and resources on pandemic data. She's also a journalism fellow at Documenting COVID-19, a public records, data, and investigative project supported by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock. Her bylines include Science News, FiveThirtyEight, the COVID Tracking Project, and other outlets.
Betsy Ladyzhets
Paola Rosa-Aquino is a Science Reporter at Insider. She has a background in astronomy and was an Environmental Justice Fellow at Grist. A native Puerto Rican fluent in Spanish, she is also the Communications Subcommittee Lead at The Uproot Project, a network of and for environmental journalists of color. Her previous bylines also include Popular Science, The New Republic, Gizmodo and Salon.
Paola Rosa-Aquino
Tyler Jones is the Program Coordinator at the Boston University SciCommers program (formerly known as NPR Scicommers.) She bridges her background in Entomology with extensive experience working with early-career science communicators and writers. She is an organizer for Black Birders Week, and her bylines appear on The Daily Beast, Tucson Audubon's Vermillon Flycatcher, and Penn State News.
Tyler Jones
Shreya graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with degrees in Journalism, Geological Science, and English. She served as the Founding Editor of USC Annenberg Media's Earth Desk and was a USC Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication Rural Climate Reporting Fellow at the Malheur Enterprise in southeast Oregon. Her work focuses on the environment, politics, and social issues.
WE ARE RECOGNIZED INTERNATIONALLY.
We've been featured by top-tier institutions, republished by industry publications, and shortlisted for awards. We are also a member newsroom of the Institute of Nonprofit News (INN) Network and Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers. That's because we are committed to changing the world one science story at a time.
AS SEEN IN
PARTNERS AND MEMBERS OF
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER.
Our stories amplify marginalized voices, drive emotional impact, and spur local action.
MASTHEAD
Alex Ip
Editor In Chief
Shreya Agrawal
Newsroom Fellow