By John Mecklin, March 8, 2016
Last year, the LegiSchool Project—which describes itself as "a civic education collaboration between California State University, Sacramento, and the California State Legislature, administered by the Center for California Studies"—held a California-wide editorial cartoon contest for high school students. The contest was judged by Matthew Green, who runs KQED's News Education Project, and Fresno Bee cartoonist Jack Ohman.
The judges named a cartoon by Torrance North High School junior Jillian Mara as a runner-up in the contest. But I think the judges were wrong; Ms. Mara's work—as you can see for yourself, above this note—is an absolute winner. So we're entering it in the competition for this year's Leonard M. Rieser Award, the capstone of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Next Generation Program, created to ensure that new voices have a trusted platform from which to address the world’s existential challenges.
The Rieser Award was established to recognize outstanding emerging science and security experts passionate about advancing peace and security in our time. Inaugurated in 2015, the award is given annually and is selected by the Bulletin’s editorial team from among the publication's Voices of Tomorrow contributors–new authors, rising stars and, yes, now policy-oriented artists who submit distinctive work that deals with at least one of the Bulletin's core issues: nuclear weapons, climate change, the changing energy landscape, biosecurity, and threats from emerging technologies.
The recipient of the Rieser Award receives $1,000, an annual subscription to the Bulletin’s subscription journal, and travel and lodging to the Bulletin’s annual Clock Symposium. This year's winner will be announced in December.
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