2021-2022

Megan Zerez

Megan Zerez reports on education for WSKG, an NPR affiliate station in Binghamton, New York. In 2021, she earned her degree from The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Zerez has interned with WNYC public radio and has written for The City, a nonprofit news site. She grew up in Honolulu and before she was a reporter, Zerez was a researcher in a bioengineering lab. But when ongoing nationwide protests in South Africa disrupted her work there, she began to record interviews and document clashes with police, and later realized that journalism was for her. That realization led to an internship at KERA, Dallas’ NPR station, where her story on refugees won statewide recognition. Zerez wrote an investigative series on alleged sexual harassment and labor law violations by a major university contractor for The Mercury, the student paper at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her work earned her honors from the Society of Professional Journalists.

WSKG Public Telecommunications Council

WSKG is a public radio station serving the Binghamton, N.Y., area with educational programming and news. Its areas of focus include the arts, culture and heritage of the region as well as other matters of local importance. It is an affiliate of National Public Radio. The station seeks to represent diverse viewpoints to help listeners reach better conclusions that can be clearly explained, effectively defended or, when appropriate, revisited and revised.

Bennito Kelty

Bennito Kelty covers the IDEA beat, taking a close look at inclusivity, diversity, equity and access for the Tucson Sentinel, a nonprofit news site in Tucson, Arizona. Before this, he worked for the Yuma Sun in Yuma, Arizona reporting on the Arizona-Mexico border and county government. Kelty calls Aurora, Colorado home and its diverse immigrant community led him to become interested in understanding cultures from around the world that exist in America and how these groups of people live together. That interest, plus growing up in a Mexican American home, influenced his love of languages, including his own native Spanish and English. Kelty started reporting as a journalism student at the University of Missouri, where he won recognition from the Missouri Press Association for a story in the Missourian, the school’s community paper. Kelty has also won an award with The St. Louis American for breaking news coverage.

Aaliyah Bowden

Aaliyah Bowden covers healthcare for The Charlotte Post, which reports on the African American community in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bowden interned at North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news organization, during the peak of the pandemic, reporting on health issues across the state. Her story on food handlers and farmers testing positive for the coronavirus was republished in The Siasat Daily in Hyderabad, India. Bowden won an award for her story on North Carolina's historically Black colleges and universities keeping COVID-19 cases low during the fall 2020 semester. As a student at North Carolina Central University, she was the co-editor of the Campus Echo, reporting breaking news and feature stories, and scoring interviews with fashion designer Dapper Dan and singer and actress Keke Palmer. Bowden, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, aspires to start a health magazine solely devoted to covering the health of Black women.

Brittany McGee

Brittany McGee reports for the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia. McGee covers healthcare, including COVID-19, and what healthcare and the community will look like after the pandemic. She was a reporter, then assistant city and state editor for The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a co-diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for the newspaper, McGee helped develop and launch Elevate, a special section that amplifies the voices of marginalized communities. She was born and raised in Arkansas, but has called North Carolina home for years. McGee graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 2021.

Gabriela Lozada

Gabriela Lozada reports on Latino communities in southern New Hampshire for New Hampshire Public Radio. She has over 10 years of reporting experience, and is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who specializes in covering social issues. Her documentary, “El Ultimo Hielero Del Chimborazo” (The Last Iceman of Chimborazo), screened at film festivals in the U.S. Lozada has worked on feature films and in TV, and has managed the communications department of Fondo de Cultura Economica, a major Latin American nonprofit publishing group, in Quito, Ecuador, her hometown. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and audiovisual communications from the SEK International University in Quito, and an MFA in filmmaking from the New York Film Academy.

Katie Hayes

Katie Hayes reports for The Daily Herald in Everett, Washington and covers issues that affect the working class. As a freelance reporter zeroing in on government accountability in the Northwest, Hayes reported on state laws that prohibit private militias. Her work appeared in InvestigateWest and Crosscut, Seattle-based nonprofit news outlets. In 2020, Hayes created a website dedicated to exploring police accountability issues in Olympia, Washington. She wrote in-depth stories and took photos for the site, along with editing stories submitted by other journalists. Hayes is originally from St. Louis and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She has reported on issues that affect rural western Washington communities as a reporter for both The Chronicle in Centralia and the Shelton-Mason County Journal.

McKenna Ross

McKenna Ross is a business reporter covering the nonprofit and charity sector for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Previously, she reported for MLive, a Michigan news site, where she focused on local government, community and health news in Jackson and Washtenaw counties. A Miami native, McKenna moved to Michigan in high school and got her start in local news as an apprentice at the Detroit Free Press. She has interned at The Oregonian, Gongwer News Service and The Palm Beach Post. McKenna graduated from Michigan State University in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science. While there, she interned at WKAR, a public radio station at MSU, and spent most of her time at the campus paper, The State News, where she led reporters as managing editor through coverage of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and fallout at MSU.

Sam González Kelly

Sam González Kelly is a metro reporter at the Houston Chronicle, focusing on communities of color and issues most affecting historically marginalized people. Prior to this, Kelly spent two years on the breaking news desk of the Chicago Sun-Times, his hometown paper, covering everything from crime and weather to police violence and social justice movements, in addition to pitching and writing features on music, labor, education and sports. After graduating from Pomona College in 2018, where he majored in media studies and minored in music, Kelly reported on arts and culture in Chicago’s West Side for Free Spirit Media. He is a native Spanish speaker who enjoys reporting in Spanish, especially on stories where sources may otherwise be overlooked due to a perceived language barrier.

Jenny Whidden

Jenny Whidden reports on the New Hampshire Statehouse and racial justice legislation for The Granite State News Collaborative, a statewide multimedia collective of nearly 20 media outlets and community partners working together. Previously, Whidden, of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, covered the Illinois Statehouse and the pandemic for the Chicago Tribune. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marquette University, where she was managing editor of the Marquette Tribune, the award-winning student paper. Whidden has reported for New Jersey’s Star-Ledger, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a nonprofit site. The Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report have also published her work. Whidden says that when she was a senior in college a journalist told her, “When done well, journalism is a genuine public service.” This is what Whidden intends on doing.