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2025 Media Fellowship Overview

Acknowledging the need for better public understanding of the connections between the health of people, places, and the planet, we added Media Fellows to our Scholars and Fellows program in 2023.

The Nova Media Fellowship program supports outstanding print, digital, and/or broadcast journalists and nonprofit newsrooms who are reporting on the complex, intertwined factors that affect health and well-being. With funding support from the Nova Institute, Media Fellows are encouraged to pursue creative new directions and pursue stories that are timely, comprehensive, and impactful. Nova Media Fellows have published their work in the New York Times, the Guardian, Science, Grist, Bloomberg, Eos, Knowable, Science Friday, and more.

Jump to Application Guidelines

The Media Fellowship program provides journalists an opportunity to explore a broad vision of health and well-being and the inadequacy of a health framework that focuses primarily on disease. Media Fellows can play an important role in translating research findings and analyses for a range of audiences, combining data with stories that inform the public and engage policymakers in order to change attitudes. 

2025 Program Details

In 2025-26, Nova will support four exemplary proposals exploring health, well-being, and our ability to flourish and live a fulfilling life. Media Fellows will each receive $60,000 disbursed over 12 months, with up to an additional $7,500 reimbursed for expenses such as travel and conference fees. Nova will cover all additional costs associated with attending Nova in-person meetings, workshops, or events. The fellowship does not fund enrollment for degree or non-degree study at academic institutions.

We will hold bi-monthly virtual check-ins with Media Fellows and expect Media Fellows to attend key in-person meetings, including one scheduled for October 12-15, 2025, in Baltimore, Maryland. We also encourage participation in monthly online Nova Scholars and Fellows meetings as well as other virtual Nova events, trainings, and professional development opportunities.

Media Fellows have full editorial control over their projects and conduct their work independently. Stories must be science-based and report accurately on pertinent ideas, questions, and debates. We embrace solutions-focused journalism while also seeking to combat mis- and dis-information. 

In a changing media landscape where readers are increasingly getting their news from a variety of non-traditional sources, we encourage novel approaches to storytelling that will engage people where they are. Media Fellows should strive to disseminate their work as widely as possible across a range of audiences, including general news readerships, policymakers, scientists, business leaders, and/or local communities. 

Above: 2023 Media Fellow Virginia Gewin speaks to the Nova Scholars and Fellows community.

Media Fellows shall include crediting for Nova Institute for Health support in all published work related to the funded proposal. Media Fellows must also include their Nova affiliation in any additional stories published during the 12-month cohort period that are unrelated to the funded proposal.

At this time, the Nova Media Fellowship cannot support book proposals, visual/mixed media art, poetry, or theater arts submissions.

Health is essential to the flourishing of all people. In these divisive times, we strive to transcend polarization and focus on solutions-based approaches that encourage thoughtful engagement with critical topics. We value evidence-based reporting that will engage with policies (past and present) that play a positive or negative role in health and connect the dots between different sectors of our society. We want to defy reductionist approaches that shy away from tackling the urgent and complex challenges we face today. Ultimately, we are seeking stories that will unite us in a more holistic understanding of the many interrelated factors that shape our health and well-being.

Nova Media Fellows have considerable latitude in determining the focus and distribution methods of their proposed projects. Successful proposals will identify strategies for engaging with key audiences including, but not limited to, policymakers, thought leaders, researchers, local communities, and the public at large. In 2025-26, we are particularly interested in receiving proposals in the following areas:

Health of Children and Adolescents
Numerous academic studies and governmental reports indicate that psychological stress is rising in young people, reflected in pediatric mental health diagnoses and acute care hospitalizations. At the same time, longstanding inefficiencies in our existing health care framework have exacerbated the effects of poor nutrition, caregiving support, and chronic diseases. Proposals in this area might explore the latest cross-cutting research around social determinants of health and/or highlight innovative new approaches to improving children’s health and well-being. 

Mental Health and Emotional Well-being 
We are in the midst of a growing, global mental health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already significant mental health decline and a staggering increase in “deaths of despair” from suicide and drug and alcohol use. A loneliness epidemic underscores growing disconnection from ourselves, our communities, and our natural environments. The climate crisis magnifies persistent inequities and threatens lives and livelihoods worldwide. Proposals in this area may wish to examine mental health using the latest science- and evidence-based approaches and dive deeply into the ways in which mental health and emotional well-being connect to personal, community, and planetary health. 

Health Inequities and Vulnerable Populations
Long-standing, inadequate, and harmful social, economic, and environmental conditions and systems have had an adverse impact on individuals’ health and created significant inequities. Proposals in this area may examine the political, environmental, and social dynamics that have led to health inequities and connect those to current policy decisions. How might science point the way forward on improving health outcomes for vulnerable and historically marginalized communities?

Transdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches to Health
Nova champions a transdisciplinary approach to understanding the many interconnected factors that affect health and well-being. How can we connect the dots between the environment, healing, and an individual’s ability to flourish and live a fulfilling life? Compelling proposals in this area may examine connections between personal, community, and planetary health; recognize and/or examine political, historical, and social dynamics that influence health; and/or highlight exciting new collaborations and intersections between sectors.

Applicants can read about our 2024 Media Fellows and view their published work.  

Experience
Ideal applicants are full-time journalists with established records of publication or broadcast in local, regional, or national markets. Local, community, nonprofit and/or student-led newsrooms are also invited to apply; see additional notes below in the application section.

Proposals may highlight international issues and/or involve international travel, but Media Fellows themselves must be based in the United States for the entire 12-month cohort term.

The Nova Institute acknowledges that the medical community has long ignored systemic racism, economic injustice, and other factors that adversely impacted the health of communities. We strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, Native and Indigenous peoples, and members of other historically marginalized communities. 

Time Commitment
Fellowships will begin in September 2025 and last for a period of 12 months. We will hold bi-monthly virtual check-ins with Media Fellows and expect Media Fellows to attend key in-person meetings, including one scheduled for October 12-15, 2025, in Baltimore, Maryland. We also encourage participation in monthly online Nova Scholars and Fellows meetings as well as other virtual Nova events, trainings, and professional development opportunities.

Project Deliverables
We recognize the value of flexible support designed to encourage unbounded curiosity and thus, we encourage Media Fellows to follow leads suggested by their research. Nevertheless, applicants must outline a set of deliverables that will reflect a year’s worth of ambitious work. In all cases, deliverables must aim to reach the targeted audiences via publication and dissemination during the term of the fellowship, though we understand that some work may not be published until after the term has ended. The Media Fellowship does not support research-only projects that do not include a plan for publication.

Journalists interested in being considered for a Nova Media Fellowship should ensure they meet the eligibility criteria listed above and submit an application that consists of a written proposal, résumé, and work samples as detailed here. 

Newsrooms who wish to apply should designate a representative (managing editor or similar) to complete the application as indicated above. In lieu of a résumé, newsrooms will be asked to complete an additional text field outlining their organizational structure, editorial focus areas, and current reporting resources.

A committee of Nova Institute staff, Nova Scholars, Nova Fellows, and Media Advisory Council members will select finalists and schedule virtual interviews. Finalists selected for interviews will be asked to provide one to two professional letters of recommendation (one page maximum).

Applications are due by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Monday, May 19. A list of Frequently Asked Questions may be found here. Please see application guidelines for further detail and to apply.

Media Fellowship Announcement: April 7
Informational Q&A Zoom call: April 30 at 3 pm ET
Applications Due: May 19 (11:59 p.m. EST) 
Finalist Interviews: Mid-July
Fellowship Term Begins: September 2 (flexible) 
Scholars and Fellows Meeting (in-person): October 12-15

Note: all dates except the application due date are subject to change at the Nova Institute’s discretion.  

Nova Institute Media Advisory Council Members

Virginia Hubbell
Jackie Judd
Jayne O’Donnell
Meaghan Parker
John Schidlovsky
Rich Stone

Have questions?
See application guidelines

Download a PDF of this program information

Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.

  • Persistence: “People did not simply progress through this sequence and experience healing. The healing journey was a recursive, back and forth process. They found helpers, used the skills/resources that those helpers provided, found other helpers that provided more resources and used those skills and resources. As this process continued, people experienced a gradual amelioration of their suffering. Although many despaired at times, all demonstrated the quality of persistence—they refused to give up.”
  • Safety & Trust: “To connect to helpers, it was essential for people to feel safe in those relationships and able to trust that the person would be a helper and not a barrier to healing. Persons whose wounds included a violation of trust were especially careful about testing the safety of new relationships.”

Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”

  • Reframing: “A particularly important skill was the ability to reframe—that is to look at suffering through a different lens.” This does NOT mean minimizing trauma or pain, but rather it often means the opposite: understanding what happened was wrong, unfair, or uncontrollable and that we are not to blame for it.
  • Responsibility: While we don’t have control over what happened to us, we are the only ones who can help ourselves heal. “A third essential resource that people acquired or refined was the ability to take an appropriate amount of responsibility for their healing journeys. They participated actively in the process of healing. Once again, some participants already had developed this skill, and some acquired or refined it from their helpers.”
  • Positivity: “Another resource that people acquired or refined during their healing journey was choose to be positive—that is to have some optimism about their situation.” People have varying predispositions to positivity. In the study, positivity was important in helping people heal. This doesn’t mean a toxic positivity, but rather simply finding some good in life and feeling hopeful about our situations.

“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad. 

When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.) 

“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”

  • “Moving from being wounded, through suffering to healing, is possible. It is facilitated by developing safe, trusting relationships and by positive reframing that moves through the weight of responsibility to the ability to respond.”
  • “Relationships with health professionals were among these but were not necessarily any more important to the healing journey than other kinds of helpers, which included family members, friends, spirituality and their God, pets, support groups, administrators, case workers and supervisors.”

Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.” 

Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”

 In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.” 

  • Helping Others: We find meaning in helping others. “Understanding that suffering gives the strength and experience to help others in similar situations.”
  • Hope: We begin to have hope that we will not always feel this bad. A Crohn’s patient said, “I think gradually I realized that I was going to feel better. I did have days when I actually didn’t vomit, when I did feel better. And I think gradually I came to believe that maybe I could have a normal life again.”
  • Self-Acceptance: We see our inherent value and understand that we are not to blame for our suffering. A participant living with HIV said, “I’m really proud of myself. I think that now I still want to live. I don’t want to die, and I really love myself a lot. I have a lot of comfort in myself.”

Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding. 

There is some debate about whether people always experience suffering on the path to healing.

Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors. 

“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”

Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.

Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.

Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.