2023-2024

Bianca Morales

Bianca Nicolle Morales Borges is the cultural expressions and community values reporter for the TucsonSentinel, an online publication in Tucson, Arizona. While Morales worked on earning her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Central Florida, she interned as a reporter for the West Orange Times & Observer. A bilingual reporter, Morales hails from Puerto Rico and has worked as a contributor at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and a freelance reporter with the Oviedo Community News in Oviedo, Florida. When she’s not reporting she’s dancing, reading, hiking, swimming or surfing.

Danielle Duclos

Danielle DuClos reports on K-12 education in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the Green Bay Press- Gazette, part of the USA Today Network. Prior to joining the Press-Gazette, DuClos reported for ABC News, The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and the Anchorage Daily News. A recent graduate of the University of Missouri, where she was a state government reporter for the Columbia Missourian, the university’s community paper, DuClos holds a bachelor’s degree in investigative reporting and pre-law political science. She is passionate about the law and has interned for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Raised in Anchorage, Alaska, DuClos was a senior producer of “Podcast in Place,” a youth-run podcast that chronicled the impact of COVID-19 on Alaskan communities, and loves to spend time in the mountains and on the water.

Hosam Elattar

Hosam Elattar covers local government and the Muslim and Arab communities 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. As a reporting fellow at Voice of OC, he covered local school districts, homelessness, affordable housing and more. Elattar, along with several colleagues, won top honors from the California News Publishers Association for their wildfire news coverage. A graduate of California State University, Fullerton, where he was a reporter and editor at the  student paper, the Daily Titan, Elattar also speaks Arabic and Spanish and has lived in Botswana, Nepal, Uganda, the Dominican Republic and India. He hopes to become a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and start his own newsroom.

Jesse Bedayn

Jesse Bedayn reports on Colorado’s Statehouse with a focus on housing for The Associated Press. A second-year corps member, he previously covered California’s wealth inequality for The Mercury News and CalMatters, connecting policy decisions to the voices of those impacted on the ground. An investigation by Bedayn exposed how low-income seniors become stranded in nursing homes and how their pleas for help go unanswered. That investigation was carried over from his work at the Investigative Reporting Program and as a stringer for The New York Times. He holds a master’s degree in narrative writing and investigative reporting from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Kent in England. Having grown up in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, Bedayn can be found bumming around the wild or woodworking.

Lucy Grindon

Lucy Grindon reports on low-income rural communities for North Country Public Radio in northern New York state. A recent graduate of Columbia University, she holds a master’s degree from the School of Journalism, where she covered education for Uptown Radio, documented responses to the war in Ukraine at Ukrainian Orthodox churches, and produced written and audio stories on local news, music and food. Grindon has worked for Commonweal magazine and her reporting for the National Catholic Reporter won a Catholic Press Award for best reporting of social justice issues. At Middlebury College, she studied history and Arabic, reported for The Middlebury Campus and was an opinion editor, and hosted two radio shows.

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.

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.

Bobby Brier

Bobby Brier covers mental health issues, especially issues affecting rural New Jerseyans, for NJ Spotlight News, a nonprofit news organization. Previously, Brier reported for New Mexico In Depth, covering the housing crisis across New Mexico and tracking bills in the state Legislature aimed at addressing the problem. His stories on the economic impact of a new professional soccer stadium in Albuquerque, and the financial contributions of land developers to political action committees in the lead- up to the city’s mayoral election earned an award for political news coverage from the Society of Professional Journalists. Hailing from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Brier has reported on arts and culture for The Scranton Times-Tribune. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and a master’s degree in journalism from New York University.

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.

Hunter McLaren

Hunter McLaren covers the city of Hastings, Michigan and surrounding Barry County communities for The Hastings Banner. McLaren has reported for Michigan’s MLive.com news site, covering breaking news and community stories, including NASCAR races at the Michigan International Speedway. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Central Michigan University. There, he worked as a reporter, photographer and associate editor of Central Michigan Life, the student paper. McLaren’s reporting has taken him to Edinburgh, Scotland.