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.