2023-2024

Keely Brewer

Keely Brewer covers the environmental impacts on communities of color for the Daily Memphian, an online publication in Memphis, Tennessee. Brewer is a recent graduate of The University of Alabama, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in news media and served as editor-in-chief of The Crimson White. While there, Brewer launched a campus investigation into COVID-19 reporting tools in partnership with the Poynter Institute. She has covered Tuscaloosa, Alabama as an intern at the Tuscaloosa News, and has reported on the impact of faith-based diabetes programs at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.

Michael Loria

Michael Loria reports for the Chicago Sun-Times, covering the South and West sides of the city. Before moving to Chicago, Loria was a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C., where he covered undocumented restaurant workers for Washington City Paper, and child care for undocumented workers, housing for older adults and more for The Washington Post. In 2020, his feature on cottage industries that undocumented workers had established to survive the pandemic became one of the most-read Washington City Paper stories of the year; his reporting on food truck turf wars was an editor’s choice for one of the best Washington City Paper stories of 2021. Loria is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Samantha Searles

Samantha Searles covers gun violence and prevention for WHYY, the major public media organization in the Greater Philadelphia area. Prior to joining WHYY, Searles was an on-air reporter for Suffolk University/New England Cable News and a contributor to Framingham Source, a news site covering Framingham, Massachusetts. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism with a broadcast concentration from Suffolk University. When she’s not reporting, she loves the performing arts, gardening and getting her dog out of trouble.

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.

Andrea Briseño

Andrea Briseño is an investigative reporter at inewsource, a nonprofit news outlet in San Diego, California. She is fluent in Spanish and covers K-12 education with a focus on Latino families. Previously, Briseño was the equity/underserved communities reporter at The Modesto Bee, where she shed light on communities and issues that had gone underreported in Stanislaus County, California. She also partnered with McClatchy Company staffers from across California to produce Spanish written articles and La Abeja, The Bee’s weekly newsletter centered on topics important to Latinos. A Fresno native, Briseño began her journalism career at The Rampage and The Fresno Bee. She is a graduate of Palomar College community college and San Jose State University.

Claire Savage

Claire Savage reports for The Associated Press in Chicago, covering institutions serving young people in Illinois and investigating how well they help youth. Before joining the AP, Savage reported on online disinformation, with an emphasis on inaccurate Covid-19 and vaccine claims, for Agence France-Presse in Washington, D.C. Savage was an intern at NBC Washington/Telemundo and completed a fellowship with Atlantic Media. She holds a master's degree in international journalism from American University and a bachelor's degree in Spanish and international business from Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned All-American honors in swimming. Savage grew up outside Cleveland, Ohio, and returns frequently to visit her family and favorite ice cream shop.

Ginny Monk

Ginny Monk is a housing reporter for The Connecticut Mirror, a nonprofit news site that reports on politics and policy across Connecticut. Previously, she covered real estate and consumer issues for Hearst Connecticut Media Group. Monk was on the investigations team at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette where she reported on housing, homelessness and children’s welfare issues, including juvenile justice. As a data fellow with the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism, she wrote a series of stories about the unnatural and preventable deaths of children in Arkansas. Monk grew up in Pencil Bluff, a small township in Arkansas, and holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, where she was editor-in-chief of The Arkansas Traveler, the student paper.

Jarrette Werk

Jarrette Werk is the Indigenous affairs reporter for Underscore, a nonprofit digital news organization with a focus on Indian Country and other marginalized coverage areas, based in Portland, Oregon. Werk is a multimedia journalist, and a recent graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Originally from Montana, he is a proud member of the Aaniiih and Nakoda tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community. Werk was an associate producer for Nevada Public Radio’s “Native Nevada Podcast,” a podcast series highlighting the culture, issues, and perseverance of the 27 tribal nations in present-day Nevada, and he has interned with First Nation Focus magazine. One of Werk’s passions is portrait photography, and his ultimate goal is to take a portrait of at least one member of every tribal nation throughout Indian County. Currently, there are nearly 600 tribes in the U.S.

Lacey Latch

Lacey Latch covers communities in northern Arizona for The Arizona Republic. Previously, Latch was a Pulliam Fellow at the paper. She has covered local and state politics, public safety and local culture for The Pueblo Chieftain in Pueblo, Colorado, and says that most of her foundation as a journalist was formed while attending DePaul University in Chicago, where she held various positions, including editor-in-chief, on the student paper. Latch holds a master’s degree in journalism from DePaul as well as her bachelor’s. Hailing from Mullica Hill, New Jersey, a small farming town just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Latch has an incredibly cute, very large dog named Deuces who, like her, is always up for a good road trip.

Michael Indriolo

Michael Indriolo is a multimedia journalist at Flint Beat, a digital publication in Flint, Michigan. Before this, Indriolo worked at The Land, a Cleveland-based nonprofit newsroom, spearheading coverage of Cleveland’s historic 2021 mayoral election and health equity. He began his career at The Portager, which serves Portage County, Ohio, investigating how calls for racial equity in the wake of George Floyd’s murder clashed with the status quo in rural northeast Ohio. Indriolo says that growing up the son of a Lebanese refugee and a parent born in a small town in America left him ethnically ambiguous while offering him unique insights into what being an American means, and if it weren’t for violence ripping through Lebanon in the ‘70s, most of his family wouldn’t be in America. That’s what he seeks to understand through journalism: how violence intersects with communities’ and individuals’ pursuits of the American dream.