2021-2022

Ian Karbal

Ian Karbal reports on state politics for Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative and enterprise news site based in Charleston, West Virginia. Before joining the Spotlight, Karbal was a Delacorte Magazine fellow at the Columbia Journalism Review, covering mis/disinformation and the media industry. He holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he specialized in investigative reporting in the Toni Stabile Center program. His work has also appeared in The Trace, OpenSecrets, and the Gateway Journalism Review. Karbal, from Chicago, began his career reporting on local government for the Pinckneyville Press in Illinois. His investigative work uncovering biased and for-profit policing practices earned him a Freedom of Information Award from the National Newspaper Association, and made him a finalist for the 2018 Chicago Headline Club's Peter Lisagor Awards.

Laura Onyeneho

Laura Onyeneho reports for the Houston Defender Network, covering the city's education system as it relates to African American children. Onyeneho is a multimedia journalist and has reported on social, cultural, lifestyle and community news. As an independent journalist, her coverage of issues that impact Black communities has been published online at The Crisis, Radiant Health, 21Ninety, Her Agenda and Afroelle Magazine. In 2019, she was a multimedia producer for the Boston Herald, and has worked as a news associate at Boston's WBZ-TV, a CBS station. Onyeneho earned her master's degree in broadcast journalism at Emerson College, and her bachelor's at Curry College. She's from Lowell, Massachusetts.

Nirvani Williams

Nirvani Williams covers socio-economic disparities in western Massachusetts for New England Public Media, a nonprofit multimedia organization based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Prior to this, Williams was the associate editor of Seema, an online publication dedicated to spreading more stories about women in the Indian diaspora, and has written a variety of articles, including a story about a Bangladeshi American cybersecurity expert and her tips for protecting phone data while protesting. Williams interned at WABC-TV's “Eyewitness News,” WSHU public radio, and La Voce di New York, a news site in Italian and English. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Stony Brook University, where she was the executive editor of the student-run culture magazine, The Stony Brook Press. Williams hopes to inspire with her writing and to continue reporting on systemic and institutional inequalities in underserved communities.

Sriya Reddy

Sriya Reddy covers South Dallas for The Dallas Morning News, where she had interned earlier. A 2021 graduate of Southern Methodist University, Reddy holds a bachelor's degree and majored in journalism, history, corporate communications and public affairs. She was editor-in-chief of The Daily Campus, the student-run publication, and her in-depth reporting about gentrification in Dallas earned her a first-place award from the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, and her opinion piece “Local Journalists Pay Attention When No One Else Does” was also honored. SMU recognized her work with an Outstanding Achievement in Digital Journalism award. Reddy grew up in Plano, Texas. She has worked at KERA, a public radio station in Dallas, Central Track, and the Dallas Free Press. In her free time, she loves to journal, buy more books than she reads and spend hours in local museums.

Benjamin Simon

Benjamin Simon is a general assignment reporter focusing on Barry County for The Hastings Banner in Hastings, Michigan. His emphasis includes schools, local government, business, environment and health. He has previously held internships at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, SLAM Magazine and the Riverfront Times. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in American Culture Studies and Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. As a section editor at the school newspaper, he won First Place in Feature Writing from the Missouri College Media Association for his story on a pop-up course exploring the broad ramifications of COVID. In his free time, he  likes to play basketball, listen to British rap and talk endlessly about his hometown of Philadelphia.

Anna Bryson

Anna Bryson covers education in Henrico County, Virginia for the Henrico Citizen. Before this, she reported on law enforcement, courts and crime at The Daily Sun in Port Charlotte, Florida, covering federal court cases and exposing the rising number of suicides in the county jail. For the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Bryson dug into childhood literacy issues, and reported on child care, mental health initiatives and the legacy of busing, and she was the lead reporter on the 2019 Tampa mayoral race at Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Bryson holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, her hometown. She was news editor at The Crow's Nest, the student-run newspaper.

Charlie McGee

Charlie McGee reports on local government accountability and environmental issues for the Desert Dispatch in Barstow, California. Previously, McGee's investigative work has detailed Hurricane Florence's aftermath in an impoverished coastal town, for VICE; and sparked a criminal investigation by uncovering an illegal PAC in North Carolina for The Daily Tar Heel, the student paper of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Indy Week. McGee has written for Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal, and his investigative work on corporate titans in the coronavirus era is a soon-to-come book. He won multiple awards as a reporter at The Daily Tar Heel, including second place in the Associated Collegiate Press's 2020 Reporter of the Year competition for a series that prompted a judge to reverse a $2.5 million deal between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He grew up in Huntersville, North Carolina.

Ivan Flores

Ivan Armando Flores is a photojournalist for the Texas Observer, an Austin-based nonprofit news organization, covering the state's Indigenous communities. As a freelance photographer, Flores focused on migration, refugees, addiction crises and the war in Afghanistan, where he reported from on and off for several years. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Guardian and The New York Times. Flores holds a master's degree in journalism from The City University of New York, and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Florida International University. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Diversify Photo, an online database of visual storytellers for editors seeking to diversify their rosters. He calls Miami home.

Laura Brache

Laura Brache is a reporter for The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, covering the effects of changing demographics on minority communities across the region. Brache spent her first year as a RFA corps member in Charlotte, North Carolina covering immigration and the Latino community for both WFAE public radio and La Noticia, a Spanish-language paper. She is a multilingual, multimedia journalist from North Carolina who was born in Massachusetts and raised in the Dominican Republic. Brache led the production of “Believe It, Do It, Earn It,” an award-winning documentary about the twice-undefeated field hockey team at her alma mater, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A recipient of the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for social media, Brache was part of the news team at WFMY-TV in Greensboro that won for its bilingual coverage of a series of severe weather events. She holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Nora Grace-Flood

Nora Grace-Flood reports on government accountability, public policy and neighborhoods in Hamden, Connecticut for the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit, public-interest news organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. Before becoming a Report for America corps team member, Grace-Flood interned with the New Haven Independent and its partner publication, the Valley Independent Sentinel, reporting on a variety of stories. She graduated from Bard College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and public health in 2021, and studied journalism and interned as an editorial assistant at PEN America, a nonprofit that works to protect free expression in the U.S. and worldwide, as part of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City. Nora lives in New Haven, CT.