2023-2024

Sam González Kelly

Sam González Kelly is a metro reporter at the Houston Chronicle, focusing on communities of color and issues most affecting historically marginalized people. Prior to this, Kelly spent two years on the breaking news desk of the Chicago Sun-Times, his hometown paper, covering everything from crime and weather to police violence and social justice movements, in addition to pitching and writing features on music, labor, education and sports. After graduating from Pomona College in 2018, where he majored in media studies and minored in music, Kelly reported on arts and culture in Chicago’s West Side for Free Spirit Media. He is a native Spanish speaker who enjoys reporting in Spanish, especially on stories where sources may otherwise be overlooked due to a perceived language barrier.

Alexa Krupp

Lexi Krupp covers Science and Health for Vermont Public Radio, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities in rural communities. She also contributes to coverage of statewide issues. Krupp was a science reporter for Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan, where she produced a podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the upper Great Lakes' area. Her work has appeared on All Things Considered, and as a freelancer, in Audubon, Popular Science, Science Vs, VICE, and Medscape. Krupp was a teacher and once spent a summer tracking mountain goats for the U.S. Forest Service. She holds a master's degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor's in biology from Dartmouth College.

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.

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reports on child wellness and mental health for the Alabama Education Lab, part of AL.com, a site devoted to Alabama news and based in Birmingham. Tryens-Fernandes earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2021, where she was a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and worked on the “Missing Them” project for The City, a nonprofit news site in New York City, documenting the impact of COVID-19 in vulnerable New York communities. Prior to this, Tryens-Fernandes worked at Human Rights Watch, covering xenophobic violence in South Africa. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Villanova University and is fluent in French.

Alixel Cabrera

Alixel Cabrera covers government accountability in West Valley City for The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. Cabrera is a Venezuelan journalist who has reported on the economy, energy, food and culture for newspapers and websites in Venezuela and the U.S., including The Salt Lake Tribune and Rest of World, an international nonprofit journalism organization. She has also reported for La Verdad and Cronica Uno, where she covered Maracaibo, her hometown and one of the cities most affected by blackouts and food shortages in Venezuela. Cabrera earned her master's degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2020. She was a Maria Moors Cabot scholar and the recipient of a Jack R. Howard fellowship in international journalism.

Jasmine Demers

Jasmine Demers reports on issues related to youth, social services and legislative accountability for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom based in Louisville. Previously, she worked for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, her hometown, covering science, health, government and the pandemic. Following months of local coronavirus coverage, including deaths in Arizona nursing homes, Demers received top awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association. The Arizona Press Club has honored her science reporting. She holds a master's degree from The University of Arizona School of Journalism, where she was editor-in-chief of the student-run Daily Wildcat, and received the Philip Mangelsdorf Award for Outstanding Newsperson of the Year as well as the Douglas D. Martin Award for Courage and Integrity.

Shaun Robinson

Shaun Robinson covers northwest Vermont for VTDigger, a nonprofit daily news organization dedicated to watchdog reporting. Previously, Robinson worked as a statehouse correspondent for the Cape Cod Times, and produced coverage of Newton, Massachusetts for The Boston Globe. He has interned at GBH, Boston public radio, and did a six-month co-op at The Patriot Ledger, a daily paper in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he covered hundreds of stories, from a subway derailment to an 84-day sanitation workers' strike. When Robinson was editor-in-chief of The Daily Free Press, the student-run paper at Boston University, it won the 2019 New England College Newspaper of the Year Award. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism, summa cum laude, in May 2021. Robinson was born in Seattle but grew up in central New Jersey. He's a lifelong soccer fan, and is steadily improving at solving The New York Times crossword puzzle.

Annie Rosenthal

Annie Rosenthal is the border reporter at Marfa Public Radio, which is based in Marfa, Texas. In 2020, as a Yale Parker Huang Fellow focused on migration and criminal justice and fluent in Spanish, Rosenthal helped to produce a bilingual radio show, tracked COVID deaths in U.S. prisons, and freelanced for publications like Politico Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She previously covered rural Alaskan life for the Homer News, the local paper in “the halibut fishing capital of the world,” and reported on immigration and the legal system as an intern at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rosenthal received her B.A. from Yale University, where she was editor-in-chief of The New Journal, a long-form magazine about New Haven. Her thesis reporting on the search for missing migrants in Arizona earned her a 2020 Overseas Press Club Scholar Award and Yale's John Hersey Prize for journalism. Her hometown is Washington, D.C.

Katrina Pross

Katrina Pross covers criminal justice for WFYI Public Media, Indiana's chief PBS and NPR member station, based in Indianapolis. Pross grew up in Eagan, Minnesota and has reported on the courts and criminal justice for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, including the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd—she was one of the select pool reporters rotating inside the courtroom. Pross has also reported on criminal justice reform and COVID-19 outbreaks in Minnesota prisons. She double majored in journalism and French at the University of Minnesota, where she was a reporter and editor at the school's paper, The Minnesota Daily. Pross has interned at APM Reports, the Star Tribune, and a radio station in France during a study-abroad program. She graduated in 2020, and was named the Daily's Editor of the Year.

Sierra Clark

Sierra Clark reports for the Traverse City Record-Eagle in Michigan. Clark is Kichi-wiiwedoong Anishinaabe Odawa, and covers Indigenous stories in her ancestral lands in northern Michigan. She holds a bachelor's degree in freshwater science and sustainability from Western Michigan University, and has worked as a water quality analyst for conservation associations. In June 2020, she began a fellowship with the Mishigamiing Journalism Project, a partnership between the Record-Eagle and Indigenizing the News, a digital news organization devoted to Native American and Indigenous cultures, issues and histories. Through this fellowship, Clark developed relationships with several newsrooms, including NPR, and brought Indigenous representation to their stories. As co-editor of Indigenizing the News, she hopes to continue uplifting voices in her community by doing investigative reporting on contemporary and historical issues regarding the Anishinaabek in her state.