2022-2023

Zshekinah Collier

Zshekinah Collier reports on education and the environment in Baltimore, Maryland for WYPR, a public radio station serving the metro area. Previously, she was a producer for “Disrupted,” a weekly talk show on Connecticut Public Radio. In 2021, as a member of the Ida B. Wells Society’s inaugural summer internship program, Collier joined USA Today’s investigative team and contributed to coverage of the Capitol riots, and the Title IX investigation. Collier earned her bachelor’s degree at American University, where she was co-editor-in-chief of The Blackprint, a student-run publication covering issues affecting students of color, news and pop culture. After graduating, Collier was a freelancer covering local events in her hometown, New Haven, Connecticut

Aryana Noroozi

Aryana Noroozi is a photojournalist covering environmental health effects for Black Voice News, which gives a voice to the community by using data and solutions-oriented reporting. Prior to joining Black Voice News, Noroozi was a Migration Fellow at The GroundTruth Project and a Crisis Reporting Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. Noroozi holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and she has been documenting addiction’s impact on a family in rural Illinois and plans to expand this to a long-form body of work around addiction and resilience.

Claire Rush

Claire Rush reports on state government for The Associated Press in Portland, Oregon. Prior to joining the AP, Rush lived in France for nine years. She worked for France 24 television and Radio France Internationale, state-funded international news broadcasters, in various roles—news desk reporter, anchor and producer. Fluent in French, Rush earned a master’s degree in journalism from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she double majored in geography and French. Rush loves maps and cooking.

Frances Mize

Frances Mize covers the climate and environment for Valley News, a paper and news site serving the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, based in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Mize was born and raised in Atlanta, and she is a recent graduate of Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in anthropology. She has written about clean water and sustainable energy issues for The Working Waterfront, which is published by the Island Institute in Rockland, Maine. Mize was a general assignment reporting intern and freelancer for Valley News, and says that she is thrilled to continue growing as a reporter in the community that first taught her how to report.

Jacob Resneck

Jacob Resneck covers state government for Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit newsroom run by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Before this, he was regional news director for CoastAlaska, a public media collaborative in southeast Alaska. Resneck spent several years working in Germany and as an Istanbul-based freelancer covering Eastern Europe, the Middle East and post-Soviet space for national publications and radio outlets. Closer to home, he’s written for newspapers large and small (but mostly small) and regional magazines. He was an Austria Fellow with the International Center for Journalists, and recently finished his second term as a board member of the Alaska Press Club, which trains journalists and advocates for First Amendment rights in the 49th state. Resneck is married and has two children.

Joseph Tomlinson

Joe Tomlinson covers the civic sector in Edmond, Oklahoma for NonDoc Media, a nonprofit outlet that reports on Oklahoma news. Prior to joining NonDoc, Tomlinson was a fellow with Gaylord News in Washington, D.C. and reported on the Oklahoma congressional delegation. As a summer intern at NonDoc, he covered Native American politics. Tomlinson earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma in 2021.

Laura Kebede-Twumasi

Laura Kebede-Twumasi is launching the Civil Wrongs project at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. Previously, she wrote and hosted a WKNO public television special on unresolved civil rights crimes in the Memphis area, and spearheaded a partnership between The New Tri-State Defender and WKNO public radio on a forgotten civil rights journalism hero, L. Alex Wilson. Laura Kebede-Twumasi is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has a decade of reporting experience, including five years writing about education inequities in Memphis for Chalkbeat.

Mia Khatib

Mia Khatib is an gentrification/affordable housing reporter at The Triangle Tribune, which serves Black communities in Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina. She is passionate about amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and enjoys investigative, multimedia and data journalism. In January 2022, she graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s in journalism and a minor in international relations. While there, she was a reporter, photographer and associate photo editor of the student paper, The Daily Free Press. Khatib has covered Middle East politics and policy for The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a magazine based in Washington, D.C.

Ricardo Delgado

Ricardo Delgado reports for the San Antonio Express-News, covering the expansion of the Hill Country north of San Antonio, Texas. Before joining the Express-News, Delgado reported for the San Antonio Sentinel, and for Capital City Soccer. His foray into journalism started at The University Star, the student-run paper at Texas State University. Inspired by "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and other programs, Delgado reported on student government meetings, and the ever-changing pandemic.

Sofia Gratas

Sofia Gratas is the rural health care reporter at Georgia Public Broadcasting in Macon, Georgia. She started working in public radio as an intern with NPR-affiliate station WUGA in Athens, Georgia, and later interned with Georgia Public Broadcasting. A graduate of the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in ecology, Gratas worked at the student-run paper, The Red & Black, in multiple roles covering local government, crime, economics and food and drink.