Pulitzer Center Grantee Wins Science Journalism Award for Project on Embryos

Journalist Anna Louie Sussman has won a 2025 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Kavli Science Journalism Award for her Pulitzer Center-supported project The Future of the Embryo. The awards honor excellence in reporting on the sciences, engineering, and mathematics.

"Anna Louie Sussman won the Gold Award in the Science Reporting—In-Depth category for a three-part series in The New York Times on human embryos and the complex scientific, ethical, and legal questions that surround them. Sussman spent two and a half years on the reporting project, which received support from the Pulitzer Center and the Alicia Patterson Foundation," according to the award announcement.

The Future of the Embryo examines questions about embryos from multiple perspectives. The project includes three opinion articles: "What Do We Owe This Cluster of Cells?", "Should Human Life Be Optimized?", and "Are Embryos Property? Human Life? Neither?" 

The series brings a personal view of a long-controversial issue, showing the nuances and complexities involved in defining personhood and creating life through modern science.

“It is more important than ever that the public understand how science works—the benefits it has brought, if sometimes fitfully, and the promise it holds for a better understanding of the world in which we live,” Sudip Parikh, CEO of AAAS and executive publisher of the Science family of journals, said in the award announcement. “These award winners have done stories that both explain and critique the scientific enterprise.”

The winners will receive their awards at the 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting in Phoenix in February. See the full list of winners here.