The prestigious Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award recognizes science journalists, research scientists and science communicators who have developed creative, original work to communicate issues and advances in science, engineering and medicine to the general public. Ivan’s work was chosen from nearly 700 entries for works published or aired in 2024, the National Academies said in announcing this year’s winners. 

In recognizing Ivan’s work, the selection committee said:

“Iván Carrillo’s powerful environmental journalism illuminates the biodiversity crisis in Mexico with nuance and urgency. His deeply reported stories — on the ecological devastation of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the paradox of hunting as conservation, and the conflict between jaguar survival and shrimp farming — blend scientific evidence, human voices, and vivid narrative. With moral clarity and a global lens grounded in local realities, Carrillo demonstrates how investigative science reporting can inspire awareness and action.”

He was honored along with 23 other recipients of the 2025 award on Nov. 11-14, 2025, in Washington D.C.

 Iván has partnered with InquireFirst for six years to help create grant opportunities for Latin American science writers and to inform rural and Indigenous communities about science, health and the environment through InquireFirst’s Spanish-language radio program. 

He is the co-founder and editor of InquireFirst’s award-winning Historias Sin Fronteras reporting grant initiative as well as the co-founder and executive producer of the radio program, En Común: conocimiento en voz viva (In Common: Knowledge from Shared Voices).

As editor of Historias Sin Fronteras, Iván has guided journalists from project idea to publication to global recognition of their work through international awards. He is mentoring a new generation of climate and environment reporters at a time when accurate, data-driven reporting is crucial for audiences in the U.S. and Latin America.

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The SEJ Awards are the world’s largest and most comprehensive environmental journalism competition. During the 2024 competition, judges and subject-matter experts, including journalists and professors, read, listened to and viewed 532 entries in 10 categories.

In recognizing our project, the SEJ judges said the reporting “is a sharp reminder of the unfair burden climate change imposes upon developing economies and Indigenous cultures where threatened traditional foods are staples. It is also a stark reminder for those in developed agricultural economies that climate change is an unwelcome guest at their own dinner tables who poses threats to global food security. Thought provoking, eloquent, powerful and sweeping in scope.”

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Covering Climate Now received 1,250 entries from journalists in dozens of countries.  We are honored and thrilled that our project written by a team of environmental journalists in Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and Panama is among the winners!

Our congratulations to the talented and committed and journalists who spent several months researching and writing the stories.  They are:

Johanna Osorio, Venezuela

María Clara Valencia, Colombia

Ruth Vargas, Bolivia

Sonia Tejada, Panama

InquireFirst awarded a reporting grant to these journalists during our day-long Historias Sin Fronteras (HSF) workshop at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Medellín in March 2023. After making a compelling pitch in a session attended by almost 50 Latin American science writers, their project was selected to receive a grant by HSF co-founders Iván Carrillo, who edited the project, and Lynne Walker, executive director of InquireFirst.

The 2024 panel of Covering Climate Now Award judges said:

“Arepas, pabéllon, bandeja paisa, and even rice itself: Many of Latin America’s staple foods, dishes that have defined culture for generations, are at risk due to extreme weather and declining crop yields. For Historias Sin Fronteras, journalists from across the region tell three interconnected stories that ask readers to contemplate climate change from the vantage points of their kitchen tables.

“Serving up intimate human stories with ample helpings of data and mouth-watering food photography, the stories impressively encapsulate many of the complex ties between climate change and agriculture and food. If more food writing dovetailed with climate reporting like this, we would all be better informed eaters.”

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Iván is one of only four journalists in the world to receive this prestigious fellowship. The three other journalists who have been awarded the Fellowship are from Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil.

Since 2019, when InquireFirst launched Historias Sin Fronteras at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iván has guided 14 cross-border science, health and environment projects from idea to reporting to writing to publication.

He has worked with 40 journalists from countries throughout Latin America whose Historias Sin Fronteras projects have been published by 52 media organizations.

Ivan has focused much of his own reporting on climate change and the impact on biodiversity. His work has appeared in National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek. And he has collaborated with Discovery Channel, CNN in Español, El WESO, Radio Mexiquense, Grupo Expansión and many other media organizations. 

We are also thrilled that Iván is the co-founder and executive producer of our science, health and environment radio program, En Común: conocimiento en voz viva.

Iván traveled to London in February 2024 to attend an EJN orientation and training workshop that focuses on subjects such as covering global biodiversity policy, guidelines for reporting on Indigenous conservation practices, strategies to unpack climate science for audiences, the crucial role of ocean diplomacy, and much more.

Iván will be focusing his reporting during the Fellowship on biodiversity.

EJN Biodiversity Trainer Mike Shanahan, who will be working with Iván on story production and professional development, said, “There is no shortage of stories to tell about the many environmental challenges facing humanity, but it is rare for journalists to have the freedom to report in depth on these issues. EJN’s year-long fellowships will enable four highly committed journalists to immerse themselves in their chosen topics while developing their knowledge and skills through tailored support and training.”

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The project by Ciudad Juárez journalist Gustavo Cabullo Madrid and photojournalist Juan Antonio Castillo in collaboration with El Paso journalist Aracely Lazcano, was recognized in October 2023 with the top reporting award for compelling, science-based storytelling that took readers to a period in time when the northern Mexican desert was a placid sea rich with biodiversity.

The narrative artfully wove together the present and the past through the voices of police detectives who, in their search for the human remains of victims of violent crimes, often find the vestiges of a geological past.

On receiving the award, Aracely Lazcano told our Historias Sin Fronteras team, “I am super happy and honored to have collaborated on this project with all of you. I appreciate the invitation, the patience, and above all the opportunity to learn and continue growing. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that something like this could happen!!!”

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We are honored by the recognition of the outstanding reporting and writing by journalists Alejandro Saldívar in Mexico and Daniel Wizenberg in Argentina.

Their reporting garnered international attention and was published by several prominent media organizations, including the weekly news magazine Proceso in Mexico and Earth Island Journal in the United States.

The project was edited by Historias Sin Fronteras co-founder Iván Carrillo, a Mexico-based science editor and journalist.

InquireFirst, in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education (HHMI), launched Historias Sin Fronteras at the 2019 World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland.  Since awarding the first grant at that year’s conference, Historias Sin Fronteras has published 13 cross-border projects.

In addition to publishing on our own website, 52 media organizations from Canada to Argentina have published one or more of our Historias Sin Fronteras projects.

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“Transgender in Latin America” was our first cross-border science journalism project under our Historias Sin Fronteras initiative, which we launched in July 2019 to provide grants to Latin American journalists for cross-border science, health and environmental projects.

H/T to Mexico-based science journalist and editor Ivan Carrillo, who edited the project and who is the co-founder of Historias Sin Fronteras.

Read the project on our website historiassinfronteras.com and join us in congratulating the team.

A special thanks to the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute which supports Historias Sin Fronteras and believes in the power of science journalism when we work together across international borders.

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