Ghorayshi (@azeen_g) received the award and its $1,000 prize for “Bio Hackers,” a story in the East Bay Express about the “small but growing community of hackers, tinkerers and off-hours science enthusiasts” who are genetically engineering organisms in their garages and basements; and “Choking to Death in Tehran,” a story in Newsweek about smog in Iran. A native of Los Angeles, Ghorayshi got her bachelor’s degree in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She then worked in a neurogenetics lab for a year before interning at Mother Jones in San Francisco. Next came a stint as calendar editor at the Bay Area alternative weekly, the East Bay Express. Last September, she started a year-long master's program in science communication at Imperial College in London, where she’s now finishing her dissertation on the effects of "future-talk" in biotechnology funding.