From the Nominator

"In 2022, as the world was slowly emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Southern California needed to showcase more than its cutting-edge scholarship. It needed to highlight how its faculty, students, and staffers continued to build community and work together to solve our generation’s most significant problems.  

Trojan Family Magazine’s themes in 2022 centered around that collaboration—between our faculty and students, patients and doctors, and even between USC and the government. The term “moonshot” has become shorthand for collaborative efforts to achieve a lofty goal. But at USC, the term has also become shorthand for presidential initiatives that exhort Trojans to find community-based solutions to global problems—from climate change to a cure for cancer.   

In spring, the stories “Your Brain on Air Pollution” and “Hot Enough for You?” relay how USC researchers uncovered the connection between the air we breathe and lifelong brain health, as well as climate change’s consequences on our physical and mental well-being.   

In the winter, the cover story “USC, Cancer and One Daring Mission” focuses on how the federal government enlisted USC researchers to work on its “Cancer Moonshot,” which seeks to reduce the cancer death rate in the United States by 50 percent within 25 years. Another USC initiative includes transforming and expanding health care in Southern California; Trojan Family Magazine tells the story of creating more care facilities in the region and introducing the Keck School of Medicine of USC’s groundbreaking street medicine residency program."

From the Judges

Trojan Family Magazine is truly impressive—illustrations and photography add depth and beauty to the magazine. The design elements are also well-executed and contribute to the overall engaging quality of the publication. The magazine has a good mix of content, ranging from exciting features that are well-written to compelling personal stories like the one on the journey to kidney donation in the spring issue.