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The David Stolberg Meritorious Service Award recognizes an SEJ member for their exceptional volunteer work. Nominees may not be a board member or anyone who is paid by SEJ.
Volunteers are the lifeblood of this organization. Member-volunteers organize tours and panels for the conference, implement the awards program, contribute to the SEJournal, serve as mentors and sit on any number of committees. This conference could not happen and SEJ could not be successful without our members lending their time and sweat in selfless service as volunteers. Here are ways to volunteer with SEJ.
The 2024 Stolberg award goes to Emilia Askari, who is a journalist, teacher and researcher (Lecturer II) at the University of Michigan.
Emilia joined the Society of Environmental Journalists in 1990. She is one of SEJ's most engaged, most impactful and longest-serving volunteers. In addition to being SEJ’s second president — the first woman and journalist of color to serve in that role (elected in 1994) — she has been:
- Co-chair of SEJ's second-ever conference in Ann Arbor, in 1992, and its 2018 conference in Flint, Michigan
- Member of the Awards Committee and frequent Awards judge
- Member of the Editorial Advisory Board, including serving as co-editor of SEJournal's EJ Academy and Inside Story columns
- Member of SEJ's DEI Task Force and DEI Committee
- Member of SEJ's Fundraising Committee
- Member of the Executive Director Search Committee
- Organizer of and speaker at countless SEJ panels and events, including this year’s closing plenary in Philadelphia; two workshops on supporting local environmental journalism; and numerous events and activities engaging students and international journalists.
In addition, Emilia has served as a generous mentor and advisor to hundreds of SEJ members and other environmental journalism practitioners, professors and students — including her students at the University of Michigan.
I am personally appreciative of her guidance during my time as SEJ volunteer and leader, particularly on SEJ's efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion. I could always count on her to generously share her ideas, connections and enthusiasm with me and SEJ's members.
To all of these important and demanding roles, she brought an unflagging passion for SEJ's mission and a selfless focus on increasing and improving environmental journalism. She truly embodies the volunteer spirit of SEJ member-leaders. I am honored and humbled to present this year’s Stolberg Award for Volunteer Service to Emilia Askari.
Meaghan Parker
Former SEJ executive director and board member
This annual award honors exceptional volunteer work by an SEJ member. It was created by the SEJ board in 1998 and named in honor of SEJ founder David Stolberg. Nominees may not be a board member or anyone who is paid by SEJ. See past winners.
Much of SEJ's best work is accomplished by member-volunteers: tour and panel organizers for the conference, awards program leaders, contributors to SEJournal, SEJ-talk and www.sej.org, freedom-of-information watchdogs, mentors, and leaders in diversity outreach. Volunteers define the heart and soul of SEJ, and they expand the group's reach and significance in ways that are not easily measured.
David Stolberg had a 38-year career with Scripps Howard that included duties for the Scripps Howard Foundation's annual Meeman Awards for excellence in environmental reporting. Stolberg always believed in "the value of networking, of the subliminal training that comes from an association with one's peers." In the 1980s, when Stolberg was assistant general editorial manager of Scripps Howard, he came up with the SEJ idea and kept suggesting it to Meeman winners until he found one who was willing to put in the volunteer time to organize with other journalists and make something happen. That person was SEJ's founding president, Jim Detjen.
Stolberg died May 24, 2011 at age 83.
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