2021-2022

Jake Wittich

Jake Wittich covers Lakeview/Boystown/Lincoln Park areas of Chicago, for Block Club Chicago. He has covered local news with an LGBTQ focus as a weekend reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and as a freelancer for Block Club Chicago, and various LGBTQ publications including the Windy City Times. His investigative reporting on racism in the Boystown neighborhood was recognized as a finalist in the 2019 Chicago Journalists Association awards. Wittich previously worked as an overnight breaking news reporter for the Sun-Times after completing a summer internship for the newspaper's city desk. He attended Columbia College Chicago, where he was managing editor of its student-run newspaper, The Columbia Chronicle.

Jessi Dodge

Jessi Dodge is a photojournalist with the Buffalo Bulletin, located in Buffalo, Wyo. She spent the last two years working as an assistant director of photography for the Columbia Missourian, the community newspaper managed and staffed by the University of Missouri, as well as its sister publication, VOX Magazine. She has worked as a staff photographer and won three awards from the Missouri Press Association as well as freelancing. She received both her B.J. and M.A. degrees in photojournalism from the University of Missouri. Her final master’s project included two parts: the complete editing and designing of a photo book on Boonville, a smallMissouri river town, and research to better understand the purpose of narrative as a tool for visual storytelling.

Jordan Wilkie

Jordan Wilkie writes and reports for Carolina Public Press in Asheville, North Carolina, where he covers election integrity and conditions of confinement in jails. He has previously written for Carolina Public Press, and his work has also appeared in The Guardian, the Raleigh/Durham IndyWeek and WhoWhatWhy.org. In 2018, Wilkie graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his previous life, Wilkie worked as an administrator and instructor of educational programming in prisons and juvenile detentions in Oregon. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon.

Jose Encarnación

José Encarnación is a journalist for Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, a Puerto Rican publication, where he concentrates on education issues that include massive school closures even before the coronavirus pandemic as well as various scandals involving the island’s education budget. As a journalist and graduate student at the University of Puerto Rico, Encarnación knows the island well. He specialized in Caribbean history and the intersection of sports and society. He has worked as a news and sports reporter for Diálogo UPR, NotiCel and Metro Puerto Rico. In 2019, Encarnación received awards for Best Feature Article and Best Interview granted by the Puerto Rico Association of Journalists. (Its Spanish acronym is ASPPRO.) In 2016, Encarnación completed his B.A. in Journalism at the University of Puerto Rico and is currently working on his master's thesis, which focuses on the political persecution that surrounded the 1966 Central American & Caribbean Games that took place in Puerto Rico.

Douglas Soule

Douglas Soule reports for The Mountain State Spotlight. His in-depth business and economic coverage promotes more extensive coverage of issues affecting the state. Soule has served as the editor-in-chief of the Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia University’s independent student newspaper, for two years. His byline has gone far and wide, including on the front page of The Washington Post and in PolitiFact. He participated in the 2019 Politico Journalism Institute. Born and raised in West Virginia, his hometown is Bridgeport, which is in the northern part of the state.

Anthony Vazquez

Anthony Vazquez is a Marine Corps veteran and photojournalist for the Chicago Sun-Times where he concentrates on city’s south and west sides. Previously Vazquez was based out of Iowa and Mexico where he focused on the effects of Medicaid privatization in Iowa and rural life in the United States and Mexico. In the Marine Corps, Vazquez supervised flight line operations of multiple airfield control groups as well as aided in medical evacuations of injured personnel by securing and designating landing zones for helicopters. His experience in the Marine Corps confirmed the importance of documenting and sharing stories. After the military, Anthony pursued journalism at the University of Iowa where he served as photo editor of The Daily Iowan. Post-graduation, he moved to Mexico to continue documenting illegal immigration. While in Mexico he was a stringer for The Associated Press and AP Images.

Teddy Rosenbluth

Teddy Rosenbluth covers health care and related issues for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. Rosenbluth has covered science and healthcare for Los Angeles Magazine, the Santa Monica Daily Press and the Daily Bruin. Her investigative reporting has brought her everywhere from the streets of L.A to the hospitals of New Delhi. Her work garnered First Place for Best Enterprise News Story from the California Journalism Awards, and National Finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists' Best Magazine Article. She graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in psychobiology.  

Eileen O’Grady

Eileen O’Grady reports for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she covers education for the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. O’Grady is the former managing editor of the Scope magazine at Northeastern University in Boston, where she reported on social justice issues, community activism, local politics and the Covid-19 pandemic. She is a native Vermonter and worked as a reporter covering local politics for the Shelburne News and the Citizen, and has had bylines in The Boston Globe, U.S. News & World Report, The Bay State Banner, and VTDigger. She has a Masters in journalism from Northeastern University and a B.A .in politics and French from Mount Holyoke College, where she served as news editor for the Mount Holyoke News from 2017-2018. She is also a traditional Irish fiddle player.

Brenda León

Brenda Millicent León reports on undercovered Latino communities for Connecticut Public Radio. She covered the recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico during her internship at The Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico. A graduate from Lehman College at the City University of New York, she focused on broadcast journalism with a concentration in political science. During her time there she was a host at WWRL La Invasora 1600 AM. Her work has been published in The Gothamist, Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), El Deadline and The Mott Haven Herald. A Bronx native, León is a recent graduate from The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she obtained her master’s in Spanish-language journalism.  

Ali Oshinskie

Ali Oshinskie reports for Connecticut Public, the Constitution State’s only statewide public media resource and home to Connecticut Public Television and Connecticut Public Radio. Her focus is on the Naugatuck River Valley and the issues that affect blue-collar workers there. The Report for America assignment is terra firma for Oshinskie, who grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. She has produced live radio shows at every hour of the morning between 2 a.m.and 10 a.m. during internships and fellowships for New Hampshire Public Radio, Marketplace Morning Report and Connecticut Public Radio. She has written for The Hartford Courant and Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s The Arts Paper, and she has produced for Wondery’s Business Wars Daily and the New England News Collaborative’s weekly program “NEXT.” Later this year, her writing will be published in “Fast Funny Women,” an anthology of essays. After completing her undergrad at the University of Connecticut, Oshinskie founded a podcasting company, PODSTORIES. Most recently she was a program coordinator for the Yale School of Nursing.