2021-2022

Alex Driehaus

Alex Driehaus is a photojournalist for the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Previously, Driehaus worked at the Naples Daily News in Naples, Florida, where she covered community stories, including migrant students facing education challenges during the pandemic and python hunters in the Everglades. Before moving to the Sunshine State, she interned at The Virginian-Pilot, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Patriot-News. Driehaus enjoys working in situations where she is able to spend time getting to know the people she photographs and exploring their lives and relationships visually. Driehaus grew up in Cincinnati, and is a graduate of Ohio University's School of Visual Communication. Her photography earned her a spot at The Eddie Adams Workshop in 2019.

Camila Vallejo

Camila Vallejo reports for Connecticut Public Radio in Hartford, Connecticut, where she focuses on housing disparities in Fairfield County. She got her start in radio as an intern for that station, later becoming a producer for All Things Considered. Prior to radio, Vallejo freelanced for Hearst Connecticut Media, a network of newspapers and websites, the Record-Journal, and the Connecticut Health Investigative Team, a nonprofit web-based news service. As an intern for the Hartford Courant, a daily paper, she kept readers informed about local entertainment, food news, and more. Vallejo graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in journalism and communications. She grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Gabriela Martinez

Gabriela Martínez is a Puerto Rican multimedia journalist. She covers the intersection of race and identity in central Pennsylvania with a focus on the Latino community for WITF, a nonprofit multimedia organization in Harrisburg. Previously, she worked as an associate producer at Kentucky Educational Television, producing pieces on health equity in Kentucky's immigrant communities and the restoration of voting rights to former felons. At the PBS NewsHour, Martínez contributed stories to the digital politics team, and wrote pieces on gun trafficking and cockfighting in Puerto Rico. Fluent in Spanish, English and Russian, she was a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Russia, and holds a master's degree in multiplatform journalism from the University of Maryland. While there, Martínez and a team of student photojournalists produced a documentary series on opioid addiction in Maryland. It earned multiple honors, including a Best of Festival Award from the Broadcast Education Association.

Katrina Pross

Katrina Pross covers criminal justice for WFYI Public Media, Indiana's chief PBS and NPR member station, based in Indianapolis. Pross grew up in Eagan, Minnesota and has reported on the courts and criminal justice for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, including the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd—she was one of the select pool reporters rotating inside the courtroom. Pross has also reported on criminal justice reform and COVID-19 outbreaks in Minnesota prisons. She double majored in journalism and French at the University of Minnesota, where she was a reporter and editor at the school's paper, The Minnesota Daily. Pross has interned at APM Reports, the Star Tribune, and a radio station in France during a study-abroad program. She graduated in 2020, and was named the Daily's Editor of the Year.

Megan Sayles

Megan Sayles is a business reporter for The Baltimore Afro-American paper. Before this, Sayles interned with Baltimore Magazine, where she wrote feature stories about the city's residents, nonprofits and initiatives. Her love of music inspired her to be a writer. At a young age she realized it was not the melody that she was so infatuated with, but the lyrics that made up the song and connected with listeners. Sayles grew up in Pasadena, Maryland, and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Maryland, where for her senior capstone project she reported on how the coronavirus and inequality intersected in Baltimore. She also worked as a staff writer and copy editor for campus publications, including Stories Beneath the Shell and The Black Explosion. Sayles teamed up with a partner to report on how the pandemic had put many more responsibilities on the oldest child in families. The Associated Press and other news organizations picked up her story.

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reports on child wellness and mental health for the Alabama Education Lab, part of AL.com, a site devoted to Alabama news and based in Birmingham. Tryens-Fernandes earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2021, where she was a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and worked on the “Missing Them” project for The City, a nonprofit news site in New York City, documenting the impact of COVID-19 in vulnerable New York communities. Prior to this, Tryens-Fernandes worked at Human Rights Watch, covering xenophobic violence in South Africa. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Villanova University and is fluent in French.

Brandon Drenon

Brandon Drenon is a Social Justice and Equity reporter at the IndyStar in Indianapolis, Indiana, covering the black and brown communities of the greater metro Indy area. Prior to Brandon’s arrival in Indiana, he was a video producer for BBC Reel, a digitally native platform of the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he reported on health and wellness topics as well as Black culture. Brandon also worked as a production assistant on the documentary Whose Vote Counts, a PBS Frontline production, which was recently nominated for a Peabody Award. In 2020, Brandon received his master’s in journalism from Columbia University to build upon his writing career as a freelance contributor for the Huffington Post and New York Post.

Alexa Krupp

Lexi Krupp covers Science and Health for Vermont Public Radio, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities in rural communities. She also contributes to coverage of statewide issues. Krupp was a science reporter for Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan, where she produced a podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the upper Great Lakes' area. Her work has appeared on All Things Considered, and as a freelancer, in Audubon, Popular Science, Science Vs, VICE, and Medscape. Krupp was a teacher and once spent a summer tracking mountain goats for the U.S. Forest Service. She holds a master's degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor's in biology from Dartmouth College.

Carolina Cuellar

Carolina Cuellar reports on immigration and communities in the Rio Grande Valley for Texas Public Radio, which is based in San Antonio. Cuellar is a bilingual reporter who grew up in Stockton, California after she and her family emigrated from Colombia. A scientist-turned-journalist, she worked on the science desk at KQED, public TV and radio stations serving Northern California, and has written about dog DNA criminal forensics and the largest fire in Santa Cruz County history, the CZU Lightning Complex wildfire that started in August 2020. Her work has appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Mercury News, and science sites such as Eos and Mongabay. Cuellar, a first-generation college graduate, holds a master’s degree in science communication and a bachelor’s in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a researcher in a virology lab and at a genomics company, with a focus on protein engineering, before pursuing a career in journalism.

Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio

Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio covers immigration enforcement for Documented, a nonprofit news site that focuses on New York City's immigrant communities and policies that affect them. Prior to this, she was a national reporting fellow for The New York Times, writing about COVID-19, the pandemic's effect on education, and extreme weather, among other stories. McDonnell Nieto del Rio is fluent in Spanish and reported on Latino communities and breaking news as an intern for her hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times. A participant in The New York Times Student Journalism Institute, she holds a bachelor's degree from Williams College, where she majored in Latin American history. She focused on immigration reporting while earning her master's from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. McDonnell Nieto del Rio has also worked for CNN in New York and Washington D.C.