2021-2022

Crystal Niebla

Crystal Niebla is a reporter for the Long Beach Post in California concentrating on the underreported West Long Beach neighborhood and its large Latino, African-American and Asian communities that are physically and economically isolated from the rest of Long Beach. Before becoming a Report for America corps member, Niebla reported for and mentored young multi-media journalists at VoiceWaves, a youth-led program based in Long Beach. Before that, she freelanced for the Post, interned at San Pedro’s Random Lengths News, and served as the News Editor for the Daily 49er, the student paper at Long Beach State University. One of Niebla’s most notable accomplishments includes reporting about a local refinery expansion project that lacked political attention from Long Beach officials until she released her in-depth story. Early on she realized that coming from a poor family in South Central L.A., she could use fearless journalism to influence positive change in society.

Bennett Leckrone

Bennett Leckrone is a reporter for Maryland Matters, a news nonprofit based in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Leckrone will concentrate on state elections, money, and ethics. He is a recent graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, and recently completed an internship at The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C.. Prior to graduating, he wrote about state and local governments during internships at The Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, PennLive.com and his hometown paper in Ohio, The Troy Daily News. Leckrone got his start covering city council meetings for the independent, student-run newspaper at Ohio University, The Post, and eventually became the paper’s long-form editor. Leckrone is a lifelong Ohio resident and has written extensively about Appalachian issues and the opioid epidemic.

Catherine Hoffman

Catherine Hoffman covers rural issues in Missouri for PBS Kansas City. She has interned as a video journalist covering faith stories for the past year, and before that was a video reporting intern at PBS Kansas City. In the spring of 2020 she premiered her first documentary short, “46 Years,” and has explored faith and resilience in her work. She holds a degree in documentary journalism from the University of Missouri with minors in French and black studies. She was raised in Dallas, Texas.

Lexi Peery

Lexi Peery is a reporter for KUER/NPR Utah where she focuses on issues about fast-growing Washington County. Peery is a Salt Lake City native who has been in Southern Utah the past year reporting on all things related to the environment, development and government for The Spectrum & Daily News. She returned to Utah after graduating from Boston University, majoring in journalism and concentrating in environmental studies while earning the Blue Chip Award. During her senior year she was an environmental and newsroom fellow at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. That same year she also interned for the national call-in show, “On Point.” While at BU, she worked her way up to editor-in-chief of the independent student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. She also was a correspondent at The Boston Globe and did freelance reporting for City Journals in the Salt Lake Valley.

Lucia Starbuck

Lucia Starbuck reports for KUNR Public Radio, where she focuses on community reporting and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in Reno, Nevada. Starbuck knows the area well. She is from Reno and graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, along with a minor in cinema and media studies. Local community issues are her passion, including the affordable housing crisis, access to oral healthcare and the challenges voters with disabilities face while participating in the election process. Along with radio, Starbuck reports in various formats, including digital storytelling and live reporting on social media. She has also directed and filmed two documentaries about homelessness. Starbuck contributed to KUNR’s coverage of hateful expressions at the University of Nevada, Reno, produced in 2019, which won a regional Edward R. Murrow award in the Best Continuing Coverage category and first place in the Associated Press Television and Radio Association (APTRA) broadcast contest for Continuing Coverage. Starbuck co-created and contributed to the series Spurs & Mud: A Century of Rodeo, which won first place from APTRA in 2019 for Best Sports Coverage.

Riane Roldan

Roldan reports for KUT in Austin, Texas and concentrates on the costs and benefits of suburban growth in Hays County. Roldan covered politics, immigration, and the environment during internships at The Texas Tribune and the Austin American-Statesman. She graduates from Emerson College in May with a bachelor's degree in journalism and grew up in Miami, Florida, where she attended Miami Dade College. Roldan has covered criminal justice for The Medill Justice Project and attended The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. Born to Cuban and Chilean families, she speaks Spanish and is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Roldan is also an alumnus of the Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism and won the first place award for in-depth reporting from the Florida College Press Association Miami.

Allyson Ortegon

Allyson Ortegon is working for KUT in Austin, Texas where she covers growth and development in nearby Hays County. Before that, she covered politics and policy, including the 86th Texas Legislature, during fellowships with The Texas Tribune and with Texas NPR affiliate stations. She wrote for The Alcalde, the award-winning alumni magazine published by The University of Texas at Austin since 1913. In an earlier stint at KUT, Austin’s NPR Station, she participated in  NPR's Next Generation Radio project. At UT, she reported across radio, television and print media for student publications including The Daily Texan and Texas Student Television. She will graduate with a degree in journalism and a secondary concentration in business. She is a two-time recipient of awards from The Headliner’s Foundation of Texas and she received the Jo Caldwell Meyer Scholarship from the Women Communicators of Austin, the Bob Schenkkan Endowed Presidential Scholarship, and the Carmage and Martha Ann Walls Foundation Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Journalism.

Silas Walker

Silas Walker is a photojournalist at the Lexington Herald-Leader where he helps plug the reporting gap in rural, Eastern Kentucky through visual storytelling. Walker worked as a visual journalist during internships with the Deseret News and a prior stint with the Lexington Herald-Leader and as a student at Western Kentucky University, where he was the visuals editor for the independent student newspaper, the College Heights Herald. He also did freelance work for organizations such as Getty Images and the Los Angeles Times. Walker was named the 2019 Kentucky student photographer of the year by the Kentucky News Photographers Association and placed 7th in the news and feature category in the National Hearst Photojournalism competition. He is originally from Portland, Oregon.

Adria Walker

Walker covers education for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. Born, raised and educated in Mississippi, Walker worked as an editorial assistant at the Jackson Free Press, Mississippi’s alternative weekly. A 2019 cum laude graduate of Milsaps College, Walker was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Purple & White and president of the Black Student Union. As a journalist, she’s covered multiple issues and breaking news stories including a Confederate flag protest at the state capitol and an in-depth look at the racial overtones of a campus robbery. Her honors thesis examined the role of black women in modern American social movements. She also taught yoga at an alternative school in Jackson and participated in an archeological dig in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

Nushrat Rahman

Nusrat Rahman covers economic mobility for the Detroit Free Press. A born and raised Detroiter, she interned for Hour Detroit Magazine. She has freelanced for Model D and Tostada Magazine and contributed to The New York Times. As a graduate student of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Rahman has written about a school in the Bronx for new immigrants and Bangladeshis working within New York City’s fast-food industry. A 2018 graduate of Wayne State University, Rahman is set to graduate this spring from Columbia, where she has focused on narrative and investigative reporting. She’s a graduate of the Al-Ikhlas Training Academy, a non-profit, full-time Islamic school in Detroit.