V38 N3 / 2023 ©2023 American Medical Writers Association. All rights reserved. ISSN 2163-5315 AMWAJournal.org 40 The Walter C. Alvarez Award is bestowed on a member or nonmember of AMWA to recognize excellence in communicating health care developments and concepts to the public. As chair of the 2023 Annual Conference Committee, I have the honor of bestow- ing this year's Walter C. Alvarez Award upon Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH. Like many of us, Dr Jetelina discovered her love for writing and for shar- ing scientific concepts with the public almost by accident. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked as a senior scientific consultant at Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, a nonpartisan health policy think tank, and she also consulted with several organizations, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But at night, after her children went to sleep, Dr Jetelina started writing about public health science. Her passionate work to bridge the communication gaps between the public, patients, doctors, and researchers led to a newsletter to help ordinary people be "well equipped to make evidence-based decisions." And what started as a side hustle driven by passion and compassion grew over the next 3 years. Dr Jetelina's Substack publication, "Your Local Epidemiologist," now reaches more than 190,000 subscribers in 126 countries. Now renowned for translating public health science into everyday language, Dr Jetelina is taking a break from her scientific work. She is focusing full-time on processing and translating scientific knowledge for the public. Dr Jetelina's newsletter topics range from infectious diseases and vaccines to reproductive health and violence to mental health and public health emer- gencies. The thread that runs through them all is her clear explanation of statis- tical analysis that transforms the profound scientific ideas into understandable chunks of information and actionable suggestions. Please join me in congratulating Dr Jetelina, our Walter C. Alvarez award winner, and listening to her talk on Saturday, October 28, at the 2023 Medical Writing & Communication Conference in Baltimore. Author declaration and disclosures: The author notes no commercial associations that may pose a conflict of interest in relation to this article. Author contact: Michele@SequeiraMedicalWriting.com Michele W. Sequeira, MS, MBA, MWC / 2023 Annual Conference Committee Chair 2023 Walter C. Alvarez Award Recipient Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH AMWA NEWS Dr Jetelina's newsletter topics range from infectious diseases and vaccines to reproductive health and violence to mental health and public health emergencies. http://www.amwajournal.org https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/archive