2022-2023

Harika Maddala

Harika Maddala is a photojournalist based in Stockton, California, covering the news around San Joaquin County for the Bay City News Foundation and its nonprofit news site Local News Matters. Maddala previously documented the homelessness crisis as a research fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, which was co-founded by Stanford University and the University of Southern California. Born and raised in India, Maddala is fluent in Telugu, Hindi and Kannada, and moved to the U.S. at age 19. As a staff photographer and photo editor for San Francisco State’s newspaper, the Golden Gate Xpress, Maddala covered police violence, prison transfers and environmental racism, and placed in the top 10 in the Hearst Journalism Awards 2021. Maddala’s work has been displayed at galleries.

Jeniece Roman

Jeniece Roman covers Indigenous communities in Connecticut and Long Island for WSHU, an NPR member radio station based in Fairfield, Connecticut. Prior to joining WSHU, Roman reported for Connecticut’s New Britain Herald and the Record-Journal in Meriden; she has won several awards from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists. Roman earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Connecticut State University, majoring in journalism with a concentration in political science, and she was the student chapter president of the Society of Professional Journalists and the editor-in-chief of The Southern News, the student-run paper. Roman enjoys reading books, photography and true crime podcasts.

Kayla Young

Kayla Young is a bilingual reporter covering immigration, race and equity for WFAE, an NPR member station in Charlotte, North Carolina, and La Noticia, the state’s biggest Spanish-language paper. Young grew up in Greeley, Colorado and for the past five years she has lived in Grand Cayman, reported for the Cayman Compass newspaper, and worked as a freelancer for the Center for Investigative Journalism, The Economist Intelligence Unit and ABC News. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, Young moved to Santiago, Chile, where she covered student protests and breaking news. Since then, she has reported on South Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the U.S.

Madison Lammert

Madison Lammert covers child care and early childhood education across Wisconsin for the Post-Crescent, which is based in Appleton, Wisconsin and part of the USA Today network. Previously, she reported for the Republic-Times, the only local news source dedicated to Monroe County, Illinois. Lammert graduated summa cum laude from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications, and was editor-in-chief of the student paper, The Alestle, which won multiple Illinois College Press Association awards under her leadership. Lammert’s photos of a Black Lives Matter protest took home a College Media Association Pinnacle Award.

Peter Gill

Peter Gill reports on central Ohio’s immigrant and refugee communities for The Columbus Dispatch. From 2014-2021, Gill was based in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he covered politics, the environment, and human rights issues for the Nepali and international press. He has also reported on housing for two Bronx-based papers in New York City, and produced an episode for the “Queens Memory” podcast about Nepalis living in the Queens borough of New York. Gill was born to American parents living in Kathmandu, and grew up in Nepal. A graduate of Carleton College, Minnesota, with a bachelor’s in history, Gill served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, holds a master’s degree in forestry from the University of Washington and is working towards a master’s from the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Gill speaks English and Nepali fluently, and Spanish, Hindi, and Wolof at an intermediate level.

Sarah Swetlik

Sarah Swetlik is a Statehouse reporter focusing on gender and politics for AL.com, which reports on news across Alabama. Prior to this, Swetlik covered public policy for Fresh Take Georgia, a digital news service at the Center for Sustainable Journalism in Kennesaw, Georgia. Her coverage has been featured by The Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting. Her passion for humanity-centered storytelling has allowed her to highlight struggles such as metro Atlanta’s housing crisis and resource disparities impacting Georgia’s most vulnerable. Swetlik, a Georgia native, earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kennesaw State University in 2021.

Will Brown

Will Brown is a journalist at WJCT Public Media in Jacksonville, Florida, and focuses on race, inequality and poverty. Prior to joining WJCT, he covered transportation, logistics and sports business at the Jacksonville Business Journal. Brown spent more than a decade as a sports reporter at The St. Augustine Record and the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida, and at the Victoria Advocate in Texas. His work has earned awards, including the Morris Journalism Excellence Award for social media, and honors from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors for his breaking sports news coverage. Brown holds a master’s degree in digital journalism and design from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, photography and soccer.

Alice Herman

Alice Herman covers health care for Spectrum News 13, a cable news outlet in Orlando, Florida. Previously, she reported on labor and the workplace as a Leonard C. Goodman investigative reporting fellow with In These Times. Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, Herman has covered Wisconsin politics for local and national political outlets including The Progressive. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Grinnell College.

Caitlin Looby

Caitlin Looby covers the Great Lakes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Previously, her work appeared in GQ Magazine, The New York Times, Mongabay and on Southern California Public Radio. As a freelancer, she’s also edited books, dissertations, poetry collections and even restaurant menus. A former scientist, Looby spent 12 years hiking through tropical cloud forests to study soil microbes and climate change. She holds a master’s degree from Kean University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. In her free time, Looby heads outdoors, paddling, hiking, camping and playing with her two dogs. Fun fact: she’s lived in every time zone in the continental U.S.

Donovan Thomas

Donovan Thomas is a health reporter covering the long-term effects of the pandemic in Georgia for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A recent graduate of Howard University, Thomas studied journalism and Spanish, was editor-in-chief of the student paper and president of the student chapter of The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. He has interned on The Washington Post’s metro desk, The New York Times’ investigations desk, and the metro desk at The Charlotte Observer. Thomas was a ProPublica Emerging Reporter in 2021-22, and a White House Correspondents’ Association Scholar. He still enjoys reading the broadsheet newspaper and hard copies of books, and loves cooking, ballet, “Jeopardy!,” and the Saints.