SSP’s 2014 Year in Review

As 2014 comes to a close, we’d like to share some of our most notable accomplishments and news from this year, made possible by supporters and friends like you:

1. Maya Ajmera, an alumna of SSP and member of the Honors Group of the 1985 Westinghouse Science Talent Search, was selected as President and CEO of Society for Science & the Public and as Publisher of the Science News family of media properties.
2. More than $6 million in awards were distributed at our educational competitions: Intel Science Talent Search, Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, Broadcom MASTERS, SPARK (Science Play and Research Kit), and The Future: Powered by Fiction.
3. More than 1,600 articles and blog posts were published on our online version of Science News and close to 600 items were published on Science News for Students.
4. SSP once again received a 4-star evaluation from Charity Navigator and was named a “Top Nonprofit” by Great Nonprofits.
5. Nathan Han, 2011 Broadcom MASTERS alumnus, won the top award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Other top winners this year included Eric Chen (Intel STS) and Holly Jackson (Broadcom MASTERS).
6. Science News’ most popular story of the year, “Health risks of e-cigarettes emerge,” received nearly 800,000 views.
7. SSP connected with nearly 3.5 million supporters through our social media channels, allowing a mobile and technologically-savvy audience to easily access information.
8. Jacob Lurie, STS 1996, won a MacArthur Genius Grant for rewriting large swathes of mathematics from a new point of view and Andrew Sessler, STS 1945, won a Fermi award for his work on outstanding contributions to the establishment of the beam-physics knowledge base.
9. Alexandra Witze won a 2014 American Institute of Physics Science Communications Award for her article on magnetic dynamos and Andrew Grant won the 2014 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism from the American Geophysical Union for his story on Voyager 1. Science News writers also won awards at the DC Science Writers Association Newsbrief competition and ScienceNews.org was chosen as one of 10 Official Honorees in the Science category of the 18th Annual Webby Awards.
10. You, our alumni, subscribing members, and other science enthusiasts invested in the work of the Society as donors and members. Hundreds of alumni reconnected with the Society, more than 1,300 donated funds to support our work, and nearly 16,000 became new subscribing members in 2014.

Thank you for your affinity for our work and your support! We look forward to an even more productive 2015, as we seek to inform, educate, and inspire scientists and the science-minded of all ages.

Happy New Year from Society for Science & the Public!