2022-2023

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.

Tash Kimmell

Natasha “Tash” Kimmell is an audio and photojournalist for KCAW, a nonprofit, noncommercial community radio station in Sitka, Alaska. Prior to this, Kimmell was a photo intern with the news site CalMatters, covering COVID-19, housing, education and other socio-political issues affecting Californians. As a production intern, she reported on the intersection of food and social justice for “Meat and Three,” the flagship podcast of the Heritage Radio Network. Kimmell holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, where she was a staff writer and photographer for Ethos, a student-run publication, and a DJ at the campus radio station KWVA. Her hometown is Pengrove, California.

Bridget Fogarty

Bridget Fogarty reports on the Latino community, especially COVID-19's impact, for The Reader and El Perico in Omaha, Nebraska. Previously, Fogarty worked for the documenters program at City Bureau, a civic journalism nonprofit, covering Chicago's public meetings. During this time, she also helped Milwaukee families navigate WIC, a public health nutrition program that helps women and their children, as an AmeriCorps member. A graduate of Marquette University, Fogarty holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and Spanish. She has worked as a multimedia reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a nonprofit news site, reporting on a variety of topics, including the pandemic's impact on the city's Black and Latino residents. The Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report have also published her work. Fogarty calls Glenview, Illinois home.

Jackson Stephens

Jackson Stephens is a multimedia journalist focusing on poverty for the Pacific Daily News in Hagatna, Guam. As a freelance reporter, he covered immigration, incarceration, international policy, protests and religion. His work has appeared in Capital & Main, the Religion News Service, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and Voice of America. Stephens, of Castro Valley, California, holds a master's degree in journalism from the USC Annenberg School. There he was an editor on the global city desk at Annenberg Media, USC's student-run newsroom. Stephens earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of the Pacific, and studied abroad his junior year—one semester in Iringa, Tanzania and another in Santiago, Chile. He is fluent in Spanish and speaks basic Swahili.

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.

Theo Greenly

Theo Greenly is a radio reporter at KUCB, a public station in Unalaska, Alaska, where he covers the Eastern Aleutian Islands. Before joining KUCB, Greenly interned at NPR, working on long-form podcasts like “Invisibilia” and “Louder Than A Riot.” As an independent journalist, he has written about homelessness and racial inequality for the Santa Monica Daily Press, and has produced stories for several NPR-affiliated stations around the country. He helped cover the 2018 midterm elections as an intern at KCRW public radio in Santa Monica, California. Greenly loves to tell stories at “The Moth,” and you can hear him making fun of himself on an episode of “This American Life.” He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he studied creative writing, and he's a proud graduate of the Transom Story Workshop. His hometown is Los Angeles.

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.

Jacob Steimer

Jacob Steimer reports on poverty, power and public policy for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit digital newsroom in Memphis, Tennessee. Before this, Steimer reported for the Memphis Business Journal for more than four years, regularly scooping the competition. He says that his best stories included an investigation into a low income housing program and an in-depth look at why so few Memphis commercial real estate agents are Black, why that matters and how it could change. While studying journalism and economics at the University of Missouri, he was a reporter and editor for the Columbia Missourian, the school’s community paper, and earned awards from the Missouri Press Association. Steimer has interned at The Charlotte Observer and WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. An avid sports fan and a history enthusiast, he grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Melissa Montalvo

Melissa Montalvo covers childhood poverty in California's Central Valley for The Fresno Bee. Before this, Montalvo, a bilingual reporter, covered the food and agriculture industries, Indigenous issues, and Mexican American culture as a freelancer, with bylines in Civil Eats, L.A. Taco, and more. Montalvo was born in Southern California, raised in the Arizona desert, and identifies as a daughter of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in international relations, minors in business law and French, and Renaissance scholar and Global scholar distinctions. In 2015, she won a Fulbright Award to serve as an English teaching assistant at Mexico's Universidad Tecnologica de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Montalvo is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Tiana Woodard

Tiana Woodard covers Black neighborhoods in and around Boston for The Boston Globe. A 2021 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Woodard studied journalism and English, co-founded the university's only Black-interest publication, BlackPrint, and worked as the first diversity and inclusion director at The Daily Texan, the college paper. She was one of five student journalists selected for ProPublica's Emerging Reporters 2019-20 program and is a recipient of a Facebook Journalism Project Scholarship. You can find her bylines in The Dallas Morning News, The Texas Tribune and The Indianapolis Star. In her spare time Woodard enjoys binge-watching “Jeopardy,” feeding table scraps to her spoiled Airedale terrier Pierre or connecting any current event to Prince. She grew up outside of Nashville, Tennessee but has called Beaumont, Texas her home for 12 years.