Solutions-focused podcast wins national science communication award

J.D. Allen, who produces the solutions-focused climate change podcast “Higher Ground” (https://www.wshu.org/podcast/higher-ground), received an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Excellence in Science Communications Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Allen produces his show for WSHU, a licensee of Sacred Heart University, and an NPR member station that serves Connecticut and Long Island. The award, in the Best Science Reporting on the Local/Regional Level category, was for the first season of the show. Allen is a lecturer at Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) and serves as managing editor at the radio station. The station collaborates with SoCJ, which is a Solutions Journalism Hub. Laura Lindenfeld, SoCJ dean and executive director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, said, “J.D.’s hard work to shed light on Long Island communities’ efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change helps demonstrate the importance of effective science communication and solutions-oriented storytelling in this struggle.”