From the Nominator

By working closely over 18 months with engineers, neurosurgeons, and research subjects with limb loss, we developed a rich understanding of a groundbreaking advance in mind-controlled prosthetics, and translated that to a smorgasbord of multimedia assets and insights to garner high-impact coverage.

We set out to place stories in outlets popular with scientists, engineers and doctors—our researchers' peers. We often aim for this kind of coverage because we don't view news clips in and of themselves as the end goal. Our hope is that the coverage we generate will set off a positive feedback loop—to help advance additional research collaborations, industry partnerships, and research grants, and even to attract prospective graduate students and faculty members. 

"Mind-controlled prosthetics" might seem like an easy topic to pique media interest but, in recent years, other research groups had staked claims in this area and received high-profile coverage. To stand out, we had to home in on exactly how this work was different and why it showed greater promise than other approaches. Then we produced text, video, animations, photos and a multimedia website that showed, rather than told, a host of important aspects. 

It worked. Not only did more than 240 news outlets publish stories or air segments about the research, we landed the scientific outlets we aimed for: Science, MIT Technology Review, STAT, Science Friday, Wired, the Scientist, IEEE Spectrum, Machine Design, Medgadget, Reuters, and U.S. News and World Report.

From the Judges

Kept the long view of societal good in mind. Finely targeted topic and audience. Media placement in an area that's been covered before shows good differentiation. And the researchers looped the communications team in before the paper; they must have great relationships with faculty.