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Elizabeth L. Cline

Before joining the Arkansas Times, Elizabeth L. Cline covered sustainability, labor, and global supply chains as an independent journalist for publications including The Atlantic, Vogue Business, Slate, and Forbes. Her freelance reporting for the Arkansas Times has explored subjects ranging from the Vietnamese food scene in Fort Smith and snake mating habits to Sen. Tom Cotton’s role in undermining diplomacy and paving the way for military confrontation with Iran. Cline is best known for her 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, an early investigation into the environmental and labor impacts of the global apparel industry that helped spark broader public conversations around fast fashion and ethical consumption. She holds a master’s degree in Global Studies and International Relations from Northeastern University. After spending two decades in New York City, Cline now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she enjoys kayaking, birding, and hiking.

Erika Konig

Erika Konig is an immigration and human rights reporter at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis. Before joining Report for America, Konig worked as a reporting intern at the Institute while earning her bachelor's degree on campus. Her coverage of public transportation cutbacks affecting the poor and disabled, food insecurity in Memphis, and abuses of President Trump's immigration crackdown has been republished in news sites across Tennessee. Konig also interned at WMC-TV, writing news scripts and editing videos for the evening news broadcast. A first-generation college graduate who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico as a child and became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year, Konig is enrolled in the University of Memphis' open-source investigative reporting program.

Biba Adams

Prior to joining the Michigan Chronicle, Biba Adams began her journalism career in the early 2000s and has been a contributor to VIBE, Ebony Magazine, AllHipHop, Revolt, The Root, The Atlantan, and theGrio. Biba has written stories celebrating culture and community with one of her specialties being retrospective pieces about the golden age of hip-hop. Biba returned to her hometown Detroit in 2017. She has contributed content to the Metro Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, Detroit Metro Times and served as the editor-at-large of Model D Media — a Detroit-focused, solutions-oriented digital media site. Biba serves on several community boards and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the National Association of Black Journalists. She also serves as a brand consultant to lifestyle brands and entertainment companies. A classic Gemini, Biba is known for the quick wit, insightfulness, and playful energy that she brings to every project she puts her hands on.

Molly Farrar

Molly Farrar covers accountability and policy in the consolidated city-county government of Jacksonville for The Florida Trib. Before joining Report for America, Farrar worked as a digital journalist for WHDH Channel 7 and as a freelance reporter in the Greater Boston area covering local politics. Her news and transportation reporting won regional awards, and Farrar was selected as a First Amendment Institute Fellow with the New England First Amendment Coalition. Her investigative work on criminal justice and prisons was published in GBH News and The Intercept. Her stories have also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Boston Globe. Farrar graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and cello performance, where she also served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Free Press, the independent student newspaper.

Hannah Ramirez

Before joining The Uvalde Leader-News, Hannah Psalma Ramirez worked as an education policy intern for POLITICO, where she reported on stories at the intersection of artificial intelligence and immigration. She has also interned and freelanced across several newsrooms in San Diego CA, focusing on investigative and public affairs reporting. In 2025, Ramirez was selected as a Carnegie-Knight News21 fellow, where she contributed to a national reporting project examining how military service members were being targeted by immigration enforcement policies. Born and raised in San Diego, Ramirez is a proud graduate of San Diego State University, where she studied journalism and served as an opinion editor for the university’s student newspaper. When she’s not reporting, Ramirez enjoys exploring local coffee shops and getting lost in a good book, often balancing both at once.

Nick Mott

Nick Mott covers the Greater covers wildlife, public lands, water and wildfire, and their impacts on communities and landscapes in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for Montana Free Press and Mountain Journal. His position is part of a partnership with High Country News Western Environmental Collaborative (WERC). Prior to joining Report for America as a corps member, Mott worked in both print and audio. He led podcasting efforts at Montana Public Radio, and his narrative nonfiction productions received some of the highest awards in the field, including a Peabody and two National Edward R. Murrow Awards. He co-authored the book This Is Wildfire, published in 2023 by Bloomsbury, and his print and audio reporting has appeared in High Country News, NPR, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New York Times and many other outlets.

James Soderling

James Soderling is an education reporter at CivicLex as part of a pilot partnership with Press Forward Blue Grass, which trains community members to work as journalists in their hometowns. Soderling was born and raised in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and is a recent graduate of Transylvania University. Before joining Report for America, Soderling reported for his university's newspaper, The Rambler, and worked at Community Action Council through his AmeriCorps service. He also interned at Kentucky Refugee Ministries and worked on Charles Booker's U.S. Senate campaign. Soderling's interest in journalism was solidified through his thesis on coal-dependent communities in transition, which combined on-the-ground reporting tactics with policy research to examine how places like his hometown adapt to economic change.

Olivia Bensimon

Olivia Bensimon covers Baltimore County for The Baltimore Banner. Prior to this role, she was a freelance journalist specializing in people-centered reporting on topics such as immigration, breaking news, protests, court cases, and local happenings. A longtime New York reporter, she has written for a variety of news outlets like The New York Times, Hell Gate, Crain’s New York Business, and City Limits. She previously roamed the streets for both of the city’s tabloids and cut her teeth as a runner at the New York Post. In 2025, she won a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York for a local feature she wrote for The New York Times about an asylum-seeking family from Guinea. She is a graduate of New York University and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Trebor Maitin

Trebor Maitin covers the futures beat for Rappahannock News and Foothills Forum. Before joining Report for America, Maitin was a reporter at Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania, where he wrote about everything from politics to agriculture to ghost towns. An alumnus of Lafayette College, Maitin served as managing editor of the student newspaper, The Lafayette. While in college, he interned with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents' Association and freelanced for The Morning Call and the Pocono Record, his hometown papers. Maitin also holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School.

Jessica Pearce

Before joining The Journal, Pearce interned with NonDoc Media, covering everything from Tribal Council elections to housing legislation. She also interned with Oklahoma Watch, where she reported on the sunset of a statewide school counseling program. Pearce is a recent graduate of Oklahoma State University, where she earned bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science. When she's not in the office, Pearce enjoys reading, cooking and travelling.