2023-2024

Maria Benevento

Maria Benevento covers education for The Kansas City Beacon, a nonprofit newsroom focused on in-depth public service journalism. Prior to joining The Beacon, she reported on the Missouri state government as an intern for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jefferson City bureau. While earning her master's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Benevento worked on the education and state government beats, the graphics desk, and as a teaching assistant on the copy desk for the Columbia Missourian, the school's community paper. Benevento's investigative work for the paper focused on the struggles domestic violence victims face while trying to divorce their abusers. She spent two years as an editorial intern at the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City before heading off to graduate school. Home for Benevento is Kirksville, Missouri.

Vanessa Colon Almenas

Vanessa Colon Almenas helps lead a team of reporters for the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), a nonprofit investigative news organization. Colon Almenas, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and her team are delving into the island's recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in 2017. With more than 25 years of journalism experience, she has worked as a reporter, a deputy director and a multimedia editor at Primera Hora, a newspaper. Later, she was the digital deputy director of Puerto Rico's two largest news sites, El Nuevo Dia and Primera Hora. Colon Almenas recently completed her master's at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. As an independent journalist her work has been published by the CPI, City Limits, Latino Rebels and CNN en Español.

Bridget Fogarty

Bridget Fogarty reports on the Latino community, especially COVID-19's impact, for The Reader and El Perico in Omaha, Nebraska. Previously, Fogarty worked for the documenters program at City Bureau, a civic journalism nonprofit, covering Chicago's public meetings. During this time, she also helped Milwaukee families navigate WIC, a public health nutrition program that helps women and their children, as an AmeriCorps member. A graduate of Marquette University, Fogarty holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and Spanish. She has worked as a multimedia reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a nonprofit news site, reporting on a variety of topics, including the pandemic's impact on the city's Black and Latino residents. The Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report have also published her work. Fogarty calls Glenview, Illinois home.

McKenna Ross

McKenna Ross is a business reporter covering the nonprofit and charity sector for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Previously, she reported for MLive, a Michigan news site, where she focused on local government, community and health news in Jackson and Washtenaw counties. A Miami native, McKenna moved to Michigan in high school and got her start in local news as an apprentice at the Detroit Free Press. She has interned at The Oregonian, Gongwer News Service and The Palm Beach Post. McKenna graduated from Michigan State University in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science. While there, she interned at WKAR, a public radio station at MSU, and spent most of her time at the campus paper, The State News, where she led reporters as managing editor through coverage of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and fallout at MSU.

Charlie Wolfson

Charlie Wolfson is a local government accountability reporter at PublicSource, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to public service reporting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his hometown. Wolfson focuses on policy, the impact of government programs and election procedure and access. For three years he reported for The Boston Globe, both while earning his bachelor’s degree in journalism at Northeastern University and after he graduated in 2020. Wolfson was a reporter and editor at The Huntington News, Northeastern’s student paper, including a term as editor-in-chief and an intense several months covering the university’s response to the early days of the pandemic. In early 2021 he interned at the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

Carolina Cuellar

Carolina Cuellar reports on immigration and communities in the Rio Grande Valley for Texas Public Radio, which is based in San Antonio. Cuellar is a bilingual reporter who grew up in Stockton, California after she and her family emigrated from Colombia. A scientist-turned-journalist, she worked on the science desk at KQED, public TV and radio stations serving Northern California, and has written about dog DNA criminal forensics and the largest fire in Santa Cruz County history, the CZU Lightning Complex wildfire that started in August 2020. Her work has appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Mercury News, and science sites such as Eos and Mongabay. Cuellar, a first-generation college graduate, holds a master’s degree in science communication and a bachelor’s in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a researcher in a virology lab and at a genomics company, with a focus on protein engineering, before pursuing a career in journalism.

Megan Sayles

Megan Sayles is a business reporter for The Baltimore Afro-American paper. Before this, Sayles interned with Baltimore Magazine, where she wrote feature stories about the city's residents, nonprofits and initiatives. Her love of music inspired her to be a writer. At a young age she realized it was not the melody that she was so infatuated with, but the lyrics that made up the song and connected with listeners. Sayles grew up in Pasadena, Maryland, and is a 2021 graduate of the University of Maryland, where for her senior capstone project she reported on how the coronavirus and inequality intersected in Baltimore. She also worked as a staff writer and copy editor for campus publications, including Stories Beneath the Shell and The Black Explosion. Sayles teamed up with a partner to report on how the pandemic had put many more responsibilities on the oldest child in families. The Associated Press and other news organizations picked up her story.

Greta Jochem

Greta Jochem reports for The Berkshire Eagle, a daily publication based in Pittsfield and serving western Massachusetts. She covers North Adams, and contributes to investigations. Jochem got her start in local news by reporting on Northampton, Massachusetts for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where she covered topics like growing homelessness, city politics, and LGBTQ issues. Jochem is a graduate of Tufts University where she was an editor of the student magazine, the Tufts Observer. As a fellow at Grist, a nonprofit news organization devoted to covering climate solutions, she reported on climate change, and has written about science as an NPR intern. Jochem grew up in Wisconsin and outside of work, she can be found biking.

Caroline Eggers

Caroline Eggers covers environmental issues with a focus on equity for WPLN, an NPR member station in Nashville, Tennessee. Before this, she spent several years covering water quality issues, biodiversity, climate change and Mammoth Cave National Park for newsrooms in the South. Her reporting on homelessness and a runoff-related fish kill for the Bowling Green Daily News earned her awards from the Kentucky Press Association. Eggers studied journalism and creating writing at Emory University and began her science communication career in Washington, D.C. at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry and the American Wind Energy Association. Beyond deadlines, she is frequently dancing to electronic dance music, playing piano or photographing wildlife or her poodle, Princess. She's from Owensboro, Kentucky.

Nirvani Williams

Nirvani Williams covers socio-economic disparities in western Massachusetts for New England Public Media, a nonprofit multimedia organization based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Prior to this, Williams was the associate editor of Seema, an online publication dedicated to spreading more stories about women in the Indian diaspora, and has written a variety of articles, including a story about a Bangladeshi American cybersecurity expert and her tips for protecting phone data while protesting. Williams interned at WABC-TV's “Eyewitness News,” WSHU public radio, and La Voce di New York, a news site in Italian and English. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Stony Brook University, where she was the executive editor of the student-run culture magazine, The Stony Brook Press. Williams hopes to inspire with her writing and to continue reporting on systemic and institutional inequalities in underserved communities.