2020-2021

Manny Ramos

Ramos is a two-time Fellow at City Bureau, a civic journalism lab based on the South Side, for which he covered the Chicago Police Department’s community-policing initiatives and worked as a public health multimedia reporter in collaboration with WBEZ’s Curious City. He also served as a journalism mentor for underserved youth via Free Spirit Media. Prior to this, Ramos reported on city politics and Chicago Public Schools for Gaper’s Block and covered municipal elections for the Daily Line. He was an editorial intern for the Chicago Reader and The Depaulia’s first podcast producer and political reporter. Reporting on Chicago's South and West Sides Ramos has joined the Chicago Sun-Times, where he will focus on Chicago’s south and west sides, including the neighborhood where he was raised.

Samantha Max

Samantha Max was an investigative reporting intern for the Medill Justice Project and a bilingual multimedia news intern at Hoy, Chicago Tribune’s Spanish-language daily. She returned to her hometown of Baltimore in 2015 and again in 2016 to work as a newsroom intern for NPR-affiliate WYPR. She has written on immigration and the criminal justice system. Samantha spent her first year with Report for America at The Telegraph in Macon, Georgia, where she covered health and inequity in central Georgia. For her second year as a corps member, she’ll cover the criminal justice system for Nashville Public Radio.  

Samantha Hogan

Samantha covered the statehouse, environment, and agriculture at The Frederick News-Post in Maryland. Her work has been recognized by the Maryland, Delaware and District of Columbia Press Association, including First Place for breaking news; First and Second Place for her pieces on growth and land use; First and Second Place for her environmental reporting. She is a former Washington Post intern, where she worked for the investigative and metro desks, and she is a graduate of American University, where she earned an M.A. in investigative reporting.

Rafael René Díaz Torres

Rafael has been a freelance journalist and geography professor at the University of Puerto Rico, where he specializes in the intersection of local sports, media and society. He has worked as a news and sports reporter for The Puerto Rico Daily Sun, NotiCel.com, 80 Grados and Diálogo UPR. In 2018, he joined the team of Todas PR, a feminist newspaper founded by Puerto Rican female journalists. He received his B.A. from University of Puerto Rico and two masters degrees in geography, mass media and women’s studies at Penn State, where he was president of the Puerto Rican Graduate Student Association. He is currently ABD in History and Caribbean Studies at the Center of Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. He is the editor of a multidisciplinary academic journal at the University of Puerto Rico.

Phoebe Petrovic

Phoebe is a radio journalist whose work has aired on “Reveal,” NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “Here & Now.” In the past year, she served as a general assignment reporter at Wisconsin Public Radio through the Lee Ester News Fellowship and editorial radio intern at “Reveal,” where she helped cover family separation and other immigration stories. She earned her B.A. from Yale University, where she founded and led audio projects including Herald Audio, the first-ever audio section of an undergraduate publication, and “Small-Great Objects,” the first-ever podcast series installed at Yale University Art Gallery.

Pascal Sabino

Pascal is a multimedia journalist from the south side of Chicago. He was previously the Environmental Health & Wellness Editor for the Real Chi, a west side local news lab with a mission of providing equitable, accountable news coverage for Chicago communities misrepresented by traditional media narratives. As part of his City Bureau Reporting Fellowship, Pascal reported on the impact of Section 8 vouchers on affordable housing in the Englewood neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. Before returning to his hometown, Pascal worked as an editor for international business publications in Turkey, the UAE, Oman, and Indonesia. Pascal is a 2015 graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA.

Manuela Tobias

Manuela is a former staff writer for PolitiFact, where she covered politics, health care, immigration and international trade. She was also a researcher for Politico, a research assistant at The New Yorker, and an intern at New York Magazine. She was a 2018 International Fact-Checking Network Fellow and contributed research to an ASME award-winning multimedia feature, “This is The Story of One Block in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn”. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tobias lived in New Hampshire, New Jersey and London before moving to Washington, D.C. She has a B.A. in comparative literature from Georgetown University.

Mallory Falk

Mallory is a two-time Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winner, a 2016 USC Annenberg National Health Reporting Fellow, and a radio journalist whose stories have aired on All Things Considered, Here & Now, and Texas Standard. She was an education reporter for New Orleans’ NPR-affiliate WWNO and a producer of What My Students Taught Me, an education podcast from The Atlantic and Columbia Journalism School’s Teacher Project. Earlier she served as communications director for Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools. Originally from Pittsburgh, Falk is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Transom Story Workshop.In her first year with Report for America, Mallory was a multimedia reporter for KRWG in New Mexico, covering education, healthcare, economic development and sustainability. In her second year, she will join Texas News Hub, based at KERA, to cover the borderlands and El Paso.

Lorin Eleni Avendaño

Eleni is a multimedia reporter who was born and raised in Honolulu. As a business reporter at Pacific Business News, she covered health care, nonprofits and tourism, writing about the Affordable Care Act, alternative lodging and the controversy over the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii. She has won numerous awards for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists Hawaii Chapter. Eleni studied international relations and communications at American University and will complete her master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley in May 2019.

Lautaro Grinspan

Lautaro has been an editorial fellow for Washingtonian magazine, where he reported on the city’s Hispanic and immigrant communities, authoring Washingtonian’s first Spanish-language stories. Previously he interned at NPR (Weekend Edition) and WBUR in Boston. He also worked as an engagement manager at Vox.com and a digital attache aide and trade assistant at the U.S. Department of Commerce. As a student at Northeastern University, he was a college correspondent for USA Today.