2023 Team
Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand.
Students, editors and mentors gather in the SOJC’s Allen Hall to finalize stories for the 2023 publication.
In 2023, 17 students participated in Science Story and followed stories across the state, ranging from filming citizen science research on kelp forest decline in Southeast Oregon to uncovering the nation’s largest waterfall concealed by colonialization and industrialization in Portland.
Students brought diverse skill sets to the publication. Some students were studied in biomedical sciences, working in chemical laboratories outside of the class, and others were journalism majors with backgrounds in film, photography and narrative writing.
These stories are collaborative efforts, often written, edited and visualized by peers as well as mentors. Collectively, the 2023 publication demonstrates both the diverse interests of individual storytellers as well as the impact of working together to share stories about the land, water and people of Oregon during this moment in time.
Storytellers
Eliza Aronson
Writer | Illustrator
Jessica Brewer
Writer
Alonso Cruz
Videographer
Lauren Hodges
Writer
Lauren Hodges is a third-year undergraduate studying environmental science and science communication. Lauren is passionate about understanding the environments around her through scientific research and sharing these findings through science communication. She hopes to continue her education in the natural sciences while continuing to convey her enthusiasm about science through storytelling.
Ella Hutcherson
Writer | Editor
Ella Hutcherson graduated from the University of Oregon and Clark Honors College in 2023, majoring in journalism and minoring in sociology. She is interested in feature writing, solutions-oriented journalism, and audio storytelling. Her story focuses on the relationship between humans and native bees in the Willamette Valley.
Eliza Lawrence
Writer
Anna Lueck
Videographer
Anna Lueck is a graduate student in the University of Oregon’s Multimedia Journalism program. In her professional life, she has worked as a TV producer and freelance video editor. Raised on a Puget Sound island, Anna loves all things water. She hopes her film for this class—about failing kelp forests and the citizen scientists seeking to save them—can be the first of many she produces about rivers, oceans, and the communities on their shores.
Maya Merrill
Writer | Illustrator
Maya Merrill is a third-year student in the Clark Honors College studying Product Design and minoring in Science Communication and Global Service. She works as a graphic designer and illustrator for the University of Oregon Communications department, Art Director for Ethos Magazine and as a UO ArtScience intern helping science students visually communicate their research. She hopes to combine her design and visual communication skills to design for sustainability and social impact and effectively communicate science through written and visual storytelling.
aj miccio
Illustrator | Writer
aj miccio graduated from the journalism master’s program at the University of Oregon in Spring 2023. He is a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller exploring connections between art, science, and people. For Science Story, he wondered how the practice of intentionally listening would influence the understanding of a place, specifically along his bike commute to class. He intends to continue listening.
Riley O'Connell
Writer | Cartographer
Maili Smith
Writer
Maili Smith graduated from the University of Oregon in 2023 after studying biology, anthropology, and science communication. As a half-Filipino, half-Midwestern vegan interested in food production, her story about a dairy farm near Monmouth, Oregon gave her the chance to explore ethics, environmental science, and economics in agriculture. She was especially excited to meet lots of cows.
Maris Toalson
Writer
Camille Walsh
Writer | Animator
Isaac Wasserman
Photographer | Writer
Isaac Wasserman graduated spring of 2023 with a major in journalism and minors in environmental studies and science communication. He is a photojournalist with a special interest in editorial work and action with a love for community. His story documents passionate community scientists interested in bees in Oregon, and he also collaborated to do photographic reporting on the stories about Willamette Falls, native bees, passive house building, and pfas.
LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS
Photos by Wesley Lapointe.
Torsten Kjellstrand and Dennis Dimick with students in the 2023 cohort celebrate the end of the two-term class in June.
Welcome to the fourth edition of the Science Story class. Students from this year add their work to the work of previous classes to create sedimentary layers of stories. These students initiated that address some of the important issues of our time from the perspective of our place in the upper Willamette River Valley.
Every year this class is the same in that students surprise us with their ingenuity and creativity. Every year this class is different in that each mix of students brings a new collective personality to the task at hand. Last year, half of the class members were journalism master’s students, a mix of photographers, writers, and audio journalists. This year, almost half of the class members were science majors, almost all of them writers.
This class has few lectures, no tests, only one story due at the end of the class (after many, many edits and revisions), and we determine a grade collaboratively with each student at the end of the term. At first, students find this confusing and strange. Once they understand that they are really, truly in charge of their own work, students rise to the challenge and (mostly) enjoy it.
For us, teaching this class is a special kind of complex, but the premise is simple. We take students through the stages of a story: find a relevant idea, research, pitch, observe during field work, listen during interviews, draft, edit, redraft, edit, redraft, edit . . . finish. Most stories require collaborating with other students in the class, another important skill that the do-your-own-work ethic of many classes.
We teach this method because this is how it goes in the professional world. We go through the storytelling steps deliberately and one at a time, so that students thoroughly learn each of those steps. We do all of this right here in our place because we believe in local journalism as a way to address global issues.
This year we strayed a bit geographically, but each story comes home to this valley – water, land, and people all stirred together in the bowl of this valley. Every force on the planet lands here in some way. In this class the newest generation of journalists feel, smell, see, eat, drink and breathe the consequences of a planet with a changing climate. We hope you enjoy and learn from their work.
– Torsten Kjellstrand and Dennis Dimick | July 2023
Photo by Kaub Mosur.
Wesley Lapointe photographs community members at the inaugural Pat Potter memorial tree planting in Alameda, California, as part of his Hearst journalism awards story about disparities in tree coverage and public health in the east bay area.
I’ve been drawn to science stories ever since my earliest years looking through National Geographic magazines on my parents’ coffee table. In nature was where I fell in love with making pictures, and in my home community of Hallowell, Maine, was where I fell in love with photojournalism.
Science Story, and Torsten’s mentorship, are what attracted me to transfer to UO in 2021. My eager participation or mentorship in three consecutive years of this course is a testament to how rewarding it’s been, and how rare it is to have ongoing editing and storytelling support of journalists as experienced and critical as Dennis and Torsten.
My science storytelling drive was deepened and reinforced with each time I took part in Science Story. Without the values and repetition of piecing together complex and important narratives at the intersection of science and society each year, I likely wouldn’t have been ready to pursue the story I photographed for the 2023 Hearst National Photojournalism Awards- about the correlations between tree coverage, public health and discriminatory housing in the East Bay Area- which ended up winning first place.
Thank you Torsten, Dennis and all of the science storytellers at the SOJC I’ve had the privilege of working alongside since 2021. Our science storytelling journeys are just beginning, and this work will only become more important.
– Wesley Lapointe | July 2023
Managing Editors
Wesley Lapointe
Editor | Photographer
Eden McCall
Webdesigner | Cartographer
Eden McCall is a third-year spatial data science and journalism, science communication, student. She found her passion for science storytelling and journalistic cartography when she first participated in Science Story two years prior. This year, Eden led the redesign of the website and the creation of the interactive web map. She also found her next story that she continues to pursue about a threatened native frog in Oregon and communities that care not only about the frog but the health of natural and human ecosystems it needs to thrive in.
Mentors
Torsten Kjellstrand
Professor
Torsten Kjellstrand has worked for three decades to tell stories with under-represented and misrepresented rural and Indigenous communities. He teaches and continues documentary photography and film projects. Science Story class grew out of discussions with Dennis Dimick and Mark Blaine, and has now become the most time-consuming and satisfying bit of teaching that Torsten does as a Professor of Practice at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.
Dennis Dimick
Mentor
Dennis Dimick has mentored Science Story since its inception in 2018-2019 when it was first called River Stories. A Willamette Valley native, Dennis grew up on a small farm south of Portland cut in two in the late 1960s by Interstate 205. As a result he spent most of his 40-plus year journalism career focused on environmental impacts of human society. He worked at newspapers in the Pacific Northwest and Louisville, Kentucky before joining the staff of the National Geographic Society in 1980 as a picture editor. For a decade he served as environment editor for National Geographic Magazine.
SPECIAL THANKS
In particular, we thank Dean Walton, the Lorry I. Lokey Science & Technology Outreach Librarian, who led us to places only a smart science librarian can go.
Prof. Mark Blaine stepped in to teach the first of the two term class during winter of 2023 while Torsten was in Finland. But Mark is more than a stand in. This class grew out of a conversation between Mark, Dennis and Torsten at a pancake house in Springfield, Oregon, after a float down the McKenzie River. There’s power in a combination of outdoor travel and traditional American food.
Mark Blaine
Professor
Mark Blaine has 25 years’ experience working at the intersection of communication, science and technology. He is an award-winning writer, investigative reporter and editor. His focus at the SOJC is on storytelling and science communication, and he has helped develop and teach Science Story since its inception. He also has a joint appointment with the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelertating Scientific Impact, where he works with facutly and students on science storytelling and communication strategy.
Dean Walton
Science & Technology Librarian
Dean Walton has helped students on their research and fieldwork endeavors since Science Story’s beginnings. He is a biologist and information scientist at the UO’s Price Science Commons and Research Library. When he’s not sitting in class with Science Story students to offer advice and resources, he works on using drones, satellite imagery and 3D modeling for conservation mapping. He is also quite interested in the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest.