2023-2024

Lindiwe Vilakazi

Lindiwe Vilakazi reports for The Washington Informer, a multimedia news organization serving African Americans in the metro Washington, D.C. area. Previously, she was a contributing editor at Acumen Magazine, a Washington-based publication featuring investigative stories that examine eugenics, African-American history, social movements and popular culture. Vilakazi says that she is an investigative journalist whose work highlights the lives and stories of those groups of people who often go unnoticed in the mainstream news. Her freelance work has appeared in several digital and print publications.

Monica Cordero Sancho

Mónica Cordero Sancho is an investigative and data journalist for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, a news site based in Champaign, Illinois. Cordero’s work has been published by Univision, Bloomberg Businessweek, La Noticia, Radio Ambulante, NPR, openDemocracy and The New York Times. Born in Costa Rica, she is a graduate of the University of Costa Rica and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Cordero was the lead reporter, involving newsrooms from 12 Latin American countries, on the investigation into the evangelical movement’s political power in Latin America. Published in multiple outlets in the United States and in Latin America, this reporting won the 2020 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award, the most prestigious journalism prize in the Spanish-speaking world, for best investigative reporting. Cordero is a member of a pub-run group in Brooklyn, New York and loves pastrami sandwiches and chocolate cake.

Sarah Huffman

Sarah Huffman reports on business and technology in Philadelphia for Technical.ly, the technology news network. Before joining Technical.ly, Huffman was an intern and then freelance reporter for Norwood News, covering local government and community events and organizations in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. She is a 2021 graduate of Fordham University, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in journalism and communications, and was an editor for the student newspaper. In her free time, Huffman is an amateur baker and enjoys testing new dessert recipes.

Bethany Baker

Bethany Baker is a journalist at The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a documentarian creating videos, photos and multimedia content, she covers water-management issues involving the Colorado River, the Great Salt Lake and related resources, as well as issues within the region's Indigenous communities and other topics impacting Salt Lake City and Utah. Before this, Baker worked on her master’s degree in journalism at Harvard Extension School, and she was a photojournalist at daily papers throughout the West. Originally from the Chicagoland area, Baker studied French in high school, and is developing her Spanish fluency. An avid outdoors enthusiast, she loves backpacking, rafting, rock climbing and snowboarding, and has two dogs and a quarter horse gelding.

Crystal Niebla

Crystal Niebla is an investigative reporter focused on infrastructure and government accountability for inewsource, a nonprofit newsroom in San Diego. A second-year Report for America corps member, Niebla was a multimedia journalist at the Long Beach Post in Long Beach, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in sociology from The California State University, Long Beach, where she was the news editor of the student paper. Niebla grew up in South Los Angeles and realized early on that despite growing up in poverty, she could use fearless journalism to influence positive change in society.

Harm Venhuizen

Harm Venhuizen is a state government reporter with The Associated Press in Madison, Wisconsin, primarily covering elections and voting rights. Prior to this, Venhuizen interned at Military Times. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he served as editor-in-chief of Chimes, the student paper. During his time at Chimes, he earned recognition for his investigative coverage of controversial personnel decisions, sexual assault and university employment policies against same-sex marriage. Venhuizen grew up on a small farm in rural Wisconsin, and spent a summer working as a wildfire firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service. His hobbies include mountain biking, combat robotics and playing the piano.

Jennifer Whidden

Jenny Whidden reports on the effects of climate change on Chicago’s suburbs for the Daily Herald, based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. A second-year Report for America corps member, Whidden previously was a Statehouse reporter for New Hampshire’s Granite State News Collaborative, covering legislation related to racial justice. A native of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Whidden holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marquette University. There, she was managing editor of the student paper, the Marquette Tribune, which won top honors in General Excellence from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Whidden enjoys going to the movies, reading fiction and spending time with Princeton, her cat.

Linsey Dower

Linsey Dower covers the cultural affairs beat for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper, based in the state capital on the island of Oahu. Dower hails from Oahu, and is a recent graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a bachelor's degree in journalism. She has interned at the Star-Advertiser, covering state legislature, and at Hawaii Business magazine, where she reported on a variety of topics, including community-supported agriculture, local art events and the mortuary business.

Noah Biesiada

Noah Biesiada is a reporter for Voice of OC, a digital news outlet in Orange County, California, one of the largest counties in the U.S. This new Report for America position allows him to continue working for this nonprofit publication. Biesiada covers the communities of south Orange County, reporting on city councils, municipal agencies, disasters and education. In his time at the Voice, Biesiada has won state and local awards for his coverage of local politics, failed disaster communication and education reporting, along with reporting an investigative series on misuses of taxpayer dollars. Holding a bachelor’s degree in communications from California State University, Fullerton, Biesiada worked at the college paper, the Daily Titan, and served as the lead news editor on several major breaking news events.

Sarah Lapidus

Sarah Lapidus covers rural communities in southern Arizona for The Arizona Republic, the largest news outlet in the Southwest. Previously, she was a general reporter in rural Alaska for the Kodiak Daily Mirror. Lapidus has traveled around the world, and speaks French and Spanish fluently, and basic Mandarin. She is a graduate of Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in French, and studied journalism at City College of San Francisco. Her reporting on local politics, policing and housing issues has appeared in a number of San Francisco publications. As an intern at The Bogotá Post in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, Lapidus reported on general news, indie music and the Colombian peace process.