Final Students Announced for SRL Health Video Fellowship

December 2020

Arlington, Va.––PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs (SRL) has selected six additional student journalists for the winter and spring cohorts of its inaugural Health Video Fellowship, which launched earlier this fall.

Students selected for the winter cohort are:

  • Logan Tsukiyama of Maui High School in Hawaii,
  • Ty Kajihara of Kaua’i High School in Hawaii, and
  • John Barnes of H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in Arlington, Virginia.

Students selected for the spring cohort are:

  • Alex O’Sullivan of BASIS D.C. in Washington D.C.,
  • Shaun Karakkattu of BASIS Mesa in Mesa, Arizona, and
  • Khulan Erdenedalai of H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in Arlington, Virginia.

“We are thrilled to induct these outstanding students to complete the final cohorts of our inaugural health fellowship,” says SRL senior director Elis Estrada. “More and more, we need young people to break science concepts down for their peers, especially in a world facing rampant misinformation.”

Students in the fall cohort are currently finalizing their videos. One student, Andrea Salazar Lopez, produced a video explainer that aired on PBS NewsHour Weekend on how coronavirus may be transmitted during the Thanksgiving holiday. The piece also reflected how she and her friends celebrated the occasion over Zoom to prevent the spread of the virus.

Like the first cohort, new fellows will pitch, write, produce, and edit a short explainer video on health or biomedical sciences topics for local and national digital platforms. Over the course of three months, fellows will combine published research, video interviews with experts, explanatory graphics, and archival footage to create rich, compelling, and clear videos. Their work will explore concepts ranging from sports medicine and Covid-19 to mental health. Fellows will be mentored by SRL Youth Media Producer, Eli Kintisch, who has created science videos for major explainer channels on YouTube such as Vox.

Supported by the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the project will include a research component to evaluate how the fellowship and explainer impact the participants’ learning.

SRL has served more than 30,000 students with a curriculum focusing on news gathering, critical thinking, interviewing skills, and videography. Read more about the program below.

About SRL

Now in over 160 middle and high schools, Student Reporting Labs (SRL) is a national youth journalism program and public media initiative that trains teenagers across the country to produce stories that highlight the achievements, challenges, and reality of today’s youth. SRL creates transformative educational experiences through video journalism that inspires students to find their voice and engage in their communities. Since 2009, SRL youth media producers have helped students place over 100 video news reports on PBS NewsHour’s nightly broadcast and more on local media outlets. Visit www.studentreportinglabs.org to learn more.

About PBS NewsHour

For more than 40 years, millions of Americans and citizens of the world have turned to the PBS NewsHour for the solid, reliable reporting that has made it one of the most trusted news programs on television. PBS NewsHour is a production of NewsHour Productions LLC, a wholly-owned non-profit subsidiary of WETA Washington, D.C., in association with WNET in New York. More information on PBS NewsHour is available at www.pbs.org/newshour. On social media, visit PBS NewsHour on Facebook or follow NewsHour on Twitter.

About NIH

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the United States government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1880s and is now part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Learn more at https://nih.gov.