2020-2021

Chris Ehrmann

Chris Ehrmann reports for SpectrumNews 1, where he focuses on how decisions made by local governments impact the environment. He is currently a Report for America corps member with The Associated Press in Hartford, Connecticut. An Emmy-nominated journalist, documentary filmmaker and photographer, he has worked for The Associated Press in Michigan and Connecticut, covering politics, crime, criminal justice and mental health reform. Additionally, he has reported on city and county government and environmental issues in Oregon and Michigan with other news outlets. Born and raised in the Detroit area, he graduated in 2016 from Wayne State University where he was a member of the Journalism Institute for Media Diversity, which focused on increasing minority hires in newsrooms and on journalism professionalism. While in Oregon, he filmed, edited and produced two documentaries on homelessness and mental health reform, one of which was nominated for a Pacific Northwest Emmy. Recently while at The AP in Connecticut, he wrote about what life was like in New Rochelle, New York, the epicenter early on of Covid-19 in New York state.

Molly Duerig

Molly Duerig reports for Spectrum News 13, a cable news television channel in Central Florida, where she focuses on the region’s housing crisis. Duerig is a multimedia journalist with a background in video production. While pursuing her master’s degree from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she covered local breaking news for The Arizona Republic and traveled to Peru to report on the impacts of mass migration of Venezuelan children and families. She also reported on U.S. natural disaster recovery and response as a Hearst Foundation Fellow with News21, directing a 26-minute documentary episode about flooding across the U.S. that was part of the EPPY award winning documentary series “State of Emergency.” Originally from Pittsburgh, Duerig previously worked in the nonprofit sector as a youth media educator and program manager. Her work has won recognition from Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, Editor & Publisher Magazine and the Broadcast Education Association.

Pete Grieve

Pete Grieve covers public health for Spectrum Columbus, Ohio, a cable news provider in the Buckeye State. Grieve is a recent graduate of the University of Chicago, where he studied political science and photography. He was a reporting intern at the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. He was editor-in-chief of his college newspaper, The Chicago Maroon. In college, Grieve produced nationally circulated breaking news coverage and reported in-depth features including a hazing investigation that was recognized with the $2,500 annual student journalism award from the Institute on Political Journalism. He helped start a work-study program to pay student newspaper staff, the only program of its kind from an independent organization at the University. Grieve grew up in Sacramento, California, and Washington, D.C.

Zoë Jackson

Zoë Jackson reports for the StarTribune in Minnesota where she focuses on younger voters and politics. Prior to this she was the metro reporting intern at the StarTribune, where she covered a range of issues including suburban politics. She covered water crisis recovery as an intern at The Flint Journal in Flint, Michigan, and has reported stories for Kalamazoo, Michigan  NPR affiliate WMUK 102.1. She was the news editor of the Western Herald, the student-run newspaper at Western Michigan University. Her work as a student journalist has been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists and the Detroit chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists.

Isabelle Taft

Isabelle Taft covers Vietnamese and African-American communities for the Sun-Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi. Before joining Report for America, Taft worked as a researcher on Washington Post journalists’ book projects on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle and President Trump’s impeachment. Before that, she worked in Hanoi, Vietnam, as a copy editor at Viet Nam News and a freelance journalist, reporting for publications including Politico Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor. She has also reported for The Texas Tribune. Taft was born and raised in Atlanta and majored in history at Yale University, where she graduated magna cum laude and co-edited a magazine of narrative nonfiction, The New Journal. Her reporting on women and reentry from prison in New Haven won the National Council on Crime & Delinquency Youth Media award.

Elizabeth Shwe

Elizabeth Shwe covers a range of health policy issues, including the status of asbestos victims, for Maryland Matters, a news nonprofit based in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., that focuses on politics and policy in the state. Shwe covered California state politics during her internship at The Sacramento Bee in 2019. She graduated from Princeton University with a political science degree in June 2020. During her time at Princeton, she was a producer for WPRB 103.3 FM News & Culture section, the station’s only long-form podcast-type program. She also wrote for The Daily Princetonian and tutored with the Petey Greene Program, which offers free tutoring to incarcerated people. She speaks Arabic and is a member of the Asian American Journalist Association and has studied in India and the United Kingdom.

Rachel Needham

Rachel Needham reports for the Rappahannock News & Foothills Forum in Washington, Virginia, where she covers the changing nature of public services. While attending Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, she was a reporter for the student newspaper, the Whitman Wire. Her coverage of rural healthcare earned the Hosokawa Journalism Award for News Writing in 2018. Rachel contributed as a fact-checker to author Aaron Bobrow-Strain’s acclaimed book, “The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez,” which documents the consequences of militarization on the US-Mexico border. After earning her B.A. in Environmental Humanities, she moved to New Mexico where she freelanced for Searchlight New Mexico, which promotes independent, investigative journalism. In addition to being a writer, Needham is a wilderness first responder and rock climbing guide.

Yadira Lopez

Yadira Lopez covers economic mobility for The Miami Herald. She’s part of a team effort to examine how the Miami-Dade area has shifted from a place where a middle income provided a comfortable life for hundreds of thousands to a metropolis beset by a housing crisis and severe inequality. Lopez has covered Latino issues for the Malheur Enterprise in Vale, Oregon, as a member of Report for America. She previously worked at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida and was editor at the Catalyst, the student paper at New College of Florida, where she received her undergraduate degree. She has worked as an English language assistant in France. Born in Santa Clara, Cuba, she grew up in Miami, Florida.

Sarah Volpenhein

Sarah Volpenhein reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where she focuses on the ethnic communities in Wisconsin, such as Native American and Hmong peoples. The focus for this reporter is less geographically oriented, and more critically focuses on diasporas that exist throughout Milwaukee and other parts of the state. Previously Volpenheim reported for the Marion Star in Marion, Ohio, covering business, the courts, and government accountability. She is an Investigative Reporters and Editors member who enjoys working with data. She won several awards from the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors for her reporting in Marion. Before joining the Star in 2017, she was criminal justice reporter for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota, where she won first place North Dakota Newspaper Association awards for her reporting on the local jail and her breaking news coverage of a train collision with a school bus. She graduated from Ohio University in 2014 with degrees in journalism and Spanish. For the latter, she completed a study abroad program in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Jessica Rodriguez

Jessica Rodriguez is a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel focusing on the undercovered Spanish-speaking neighborhoods on the city’s south side. Rodriguez has covered crime and breaking news in Naples, Florida, for the Naples Daily News. As a crime reporter, she covered issues that affect Latinos dealing with police and the criminal justice system, such as language barriers farm working communities face when reporting crimes. Prior to that, she interned at the Gainesville Sun as a reporter and photographer. Rodriguez graduated from the University of Florida in August 2018 and was born and raised in Hialeah, a city just outside of Miami. Rodriguez is of Cuban and Honduran descent. She spends most of her free time training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, a sport she has come to love.