The 2024 NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award was presented to three exceptional young researchers — Jasmine Kwasa, Jason Griffin and T. Christina Zhao — for their bold, cross-disciplinary approaches at a ceremony on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
The NOMIS & Science Young Explorers were recognized for their innovative research that pushes the boundaries of science and aims to address pressing fundamental questions. Grand prize winner Jasmine Kwasa was recognized for developing inclusive neuroimaging technologies; finalist Jason Griffin for his research into visual and neural mechanisms in autism; and finalist T. Christina Zhao for her work on how exposure to music influences language development in infants.
The awards were presented by Stella Hurtley, deputy editor of Science; Bill Moran, publisher of the Science family of journals; and Markus Reinhard, managing director of the NOMIS Foundation. Established in 2021 by NOMIS and Science/AAAS, the award honors bold young scientists who conduct research with an enthusiasm that catalyzes cross-disciplinary collaboration and who take risks to creatively address relevant and exciting questions across the life and social sciences. In addition to a cash prize, the recipients’ winning essays are published in Science.
“The NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award celebrates the inspiring achievements of three outstanding early-career researchers who have bold ideas,” said Reinhard. “Their research is breaking new ground, enabling new opportunities and new scientific quests, and invites us to appreciate and reimagine the potential of science and the good it does for humankind.”
Creating partnerships that support basic research and early-career researchers is critical. Moran explained, “Our mission is to advance science, engineering and innovation throughout the world for the betterment of all. NOMIS, AAAS and Science share that mission, and it’s crucial for us to always keep that in mind.”
In her keynote, Elisabeth Stark, vice president of research at the University of Zurich (UZH), emphasized the power of interdisciplinarity — a core value of NOMIS and its partners — in addressing complex global challenges. Stark described the ongoing cross-disciplinary initiatives and research areas at UZH and shared her vision that all universities actively work to weave disciplines together to discover new insights at their intersections.
A highlight of the ceremony is hearing from the new Young Explorers. Each of them presented their research to a diverse audience of scholars, students and other members of the scientific community, offering a glimpse into their creative, inspiring approaches.
Grand prize winner Jasmine Kwasa
Jasmine Kwasa was honored for her groundbreaking efforts to address racial and phenotypic biases in neuroimaging methods. Her research focuses on developing inclusive medical technologies, such as the Sevo EEG electrode adapter, to reduce phenotypic bias in brain sensing devices, to increase accessibility to underrepresented populations, and to improve data accuracy for all. She is the grand-prize winner of the NOMIS & Science Award for her essay “Untangling bias: Racial and phenotypic bias in neuroimaging methods must be addressed.”
Kwasa received an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis (US), a master’s degree from Boston University (US), and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, US), all in biomedical engineering.
Finalist Jason Griffin
Jason Griffin’s research investigates the visual and neural mechanisms that underlie social perception in individuals with autism. He is a NOMIS & Science Award finalist for his essay “Eyes are windows to the brain: Capturing eye movements to better understand face processing in autism.”
Griffin received an undergraduate degree from California State University Channel Islands (Camarillo, US) and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University (US). After completing his postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University (New Haven, US), he launched his laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston in 2024.
Finalist T. Christina Zhao
T. Christina Zhao’s research examines how early auditory learning takes place in the infant brain and how it relates to language development. She is a NOMIS & Science Award finalist for her essay “Bringing music back to our children: Greater exposure to music can benefit language learning in infants.”
Zhao received an undergraduate degree from Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, US) and a PhD from the University of Washington. After completing her postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, Zhao started her laboratory there in 2022.
NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award
Through the NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award, the editors of Science and NOMIS are recognizing bold young researchers with an MD, PhD or MD/PhD who ask fundamental questions at the intersection of the social and life sciences. It is awarded to scientists who conduct research with an enthusiasm that catalyzes cross-disciplinary collaboration and who take risks to creatively address relevant and exciting questions.
About Science/AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journals Science, Science Translational Medicine, Science Signaling, Science Advances, Science Immunology, and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes some 254 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science, founded by Thomas Edison, has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of more than 400,000.
The nonprofit AAAS — www.aaas.org — is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. Science’s daily online news is always free to the public, as are editorials, any paper with broad public health significance, and all research articles 12 months after publication. Science further participates in various efforts to provide free access for scientists in the world’s poorest countries.
