From the Nominator

Published just before the autumn surge of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, at a time when the daily news feed was filled with expert sound bites about the biology of the novel pathogen, and predictions about its capricious path, “Bearing Witness” took a very different approach to the subject: asking Harvard’s frontline public health researchers to share their emotional, spiritual, and philosophical reflections about a crisis that would indelibly stamp their careers and their lives. The result is a collection of highly personal and dramatic 1,000-word firsthand accounts of stress, exhaustion, anger, grief, gratitude, and soul-searching—the often-hidden human side of doing science during an unprecedented public health emergency.

From the Judges

A novel approach to sharing a story about the COVID-19 pandemic, refreshing and powerful with its first-person perspectives from the front line.