The winners of 2025 Sloan Student Prizes have been selected by a jury of scientists and film industry professionals, as recently announced in Indiewire. Each winner will receive $20,000 plus year-round mentorship from Museum of the Moving Image and film and science professionals. The Grand Jury prize represents the best screenplay selected from among those schools with which the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation partners year-round and the Discovery Prize represents an expansion of Sloan's film program to include nominations from six public universities.
The 2025 jurors were Jonathan Bogarín (306 HOLLYWOOD), Dr. Gabriela Chiosis (The Gabriela Chiosis Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), Dr. Justus Kebschull (The Kebschull Lab at John Hopkins University), filmmaker Robert Kolodny (THE FEATHERWEIGHT), filmmaker Eliza McNitt (SPHERES), filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt (A LIFE ILLUMINATED), and Team ORCA founder Dr. Edie Widder. They selected the following filmmakers:
The winner of the 2025 Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize:
GOD MAKERS by Quinn Spicker (AFI)
Logline: In this true story for the battle over ChatGPT, academic researcher Helen Toner takes on tech-industrialist Sam Altman in an attempt to control the future of AI.
Jury Citation: “Keenly constructed and propulsively written, God Makers tackles a pivotal moment in human history. In anchoring the script in the perspective of a woman in STEM, Quinn Spicker has crafted a fresh, nuanced take on the story audiences think they know about Sam Altman, ChatGPT, and the future of artificial intelligence. The jury is delighted to award the Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize to GOD MAKERS.”
The jury also awarded honorable mention to Grand Jury Prize finalist Ellie Melick for her script SLEDHEAD.
SLEDHEAD by Ellie Melick (Carnegie Mellon University)
Logline: When her cousin — and hero — loses a long battle with mental illness, U.S.A. Skeleton athlete Ingrid Anderson puts her Olympic dreams on the line to help neurological researchers investigate how sliding sports damage the brain.
The winner of the 2025 Sloan Student Discovery Prize:
THE HEAD CASES by Nora Kaye (Brooklyn College)
Logline: Two brilliant, stubborn women—a rebellious young scientist and her exacting former professor—must overcome their mutual hatred to save the professor’s fading mind, testing their unorthodox Alzheimer’s treatment in a high stakes experiment that blurs the line between genius and recklessness.
Jury citation: “Balancing relatable emotional stakes with laugh-out-loud humor, THE HEAD CASES’s distinctive tone and sparkling dialogue make it an engrossing read. Nora Kaye’s charming two-hander explores the personal motivations and ethical challenges faced by scientists who devote their careers to combatting devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s. The jury is pleased to award the Sloan Student Discovery Prize to THE HEAD CASES”
Kaye is the first filmmaker from Brooklyn College to claim the prize since its inception in 2019.
The winners will be celebrated with an awards presentation, reception, and staged readings from their winning scripts at Museum of the Moving Image on April 9, 2026. The event is open to the public with RSVP.
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