2024-2025

Liana Hardy

Liana Hardy covers educational equity in Henrico County, Virginia for the Henrico Citizen. Prior to joining the Citizen, Hardy interned for the Alexandria Times in Alexandria, Virginia, where she wrote stories on local sports, arts and music, education and politics. Hardy earned her bachelor's degree in history from Georgetown University, where she worked as a news and features editor for The Hoya, the university's main student newspaper. She also completed coursework for minors in journalism and Spanish. Hardy is a native of the D.C. region, growing up in Arlington, Virginia, where she loves to explore nature trails and local food sites.

Shannon Sollitt

Shannon Sollitt is a bilingual journalist covering Utah's tech sector and other business coverage. Previously, Shannon covered agriculture for the Statesman Journal. A multimedia journalist, Sollitt’s career started in her hometown of Jackson, Wyoming, reporting breaking news, local politics, housing and economic injustice for various news outlets. Her coverage of sexual violence prompted curriculum changes in the local high school. Sollitt says that there are few things she knows with certainty: words are powerful. Even small ones carry weight. She strives to use them to tell stories that heal, that help, that hold a mirror up to the world and ask it to change. Sollitt holds a master’s in journalism from Boston University and a bachelor’s from Willamette University.

Carly Berlin

Carly Berlin covers housing and infrastructure for Vermont Public and VTDigger. Previously, she was the metro reporter for New Orleans Public Radio, where she focused on housing, transportation and city government. Her stories have aired on Marketplace, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Before working in radio, she was the Gulf Coast Correspondent for Southerly, where she reported on disaster recovery across south Louisiana during two recording-breaking hurricane seasons. Much of that coverage centered on the aftermath of Hurricanes Laura and Delta in Lake Charles at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. Berlin grew up in Atlanta and earned a BA in English with a Creative Writing concentration from Bowdoin College in 2018. She’s an avid bird watcher and ultimate frisbee player.

Lillian M. Hernández Caraballo

Lillian (Lilly) Hernández Caraballo is a bilingual, multimedia journalist based in Central Florida, reporting for WMFE 90.7 in Orlando. Before joining Report for America, Caraballo was a writer, paginator and editor for the weekly periodical Hometown News and an associate producer for Spectrum News 13, a top 20 TV market. She graduated from University of Central Florida in 2021 with a bachelor's degree in journalism, a minor in writing and rhetoric and a certification in Hispanic media. At the school, Caraballo was editor-in-chief of NSM Today, the student newspaper, and interned with several news outlets, including WKMG News 6, WUCF 89.9 and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. During her time at WUCF, she collaborated to host, manage and web produce the award-winning project "The Road to Freedom Avenue: The Legacy of Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore." Her role in that project was instrumental in earning the organization a National Edward R. Murrow Award in 2022, for Excellence in Digital Reporting, among other accolades.

Sofi Zeman

Sofi Zeman covers education, safety and crime in Uvalde, Texas, for the Uvalde Leader News. Before joining the Uvalde team, she reported on education and state government for the Columbia Missourian and Missouri News Network, respectively. A few of her favorite past projects include writing about inequity in Missouri's clemency process and investigating corporal punishment policies in the public schools system. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism with a bachelor's in print journalism and a minor in Spanish.

Charlie McGee

Charlie McGee is an investigative reporter for The Tributary covering systemic problems in Jacksonville, Florida. He previously reported for the Victorville Daily Press in California’s High Desert with exclusive work prompting mass-action lawsuits against Goldman Sachs and Synagro over a sewage-pit fire, an FBI probe of alleged city-hall corruption, and policy changes across San Bernardino County. He has written for outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Rolling Stone magazine and Vice News on topics ranging from questionable COVID-19 spending to renewable-energy debates to CEO pay. He amassed research as assistant to former WSJ reporter Liz Hoffman for her 2023 book, “Crash Landing.” His work as investigations editor for The Daily Tar Heel sparked a campaign-finance investigation in North Carolina and the reversal of a $2.5 million deal between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. McGee has been recognized with honors including second-place in the California News Publishers Association’s 2021 Investigative Reporting competition and second-place in the Associated Collegiate Press’s 2020 Reporter of the Year competition.

Lucille Lannigan

Lucille Lannigan covers rural communities in Southwest, Georgia, for the Albany Herald. She was born and mostly raised in Key West, Florida, and served as co editor-in-chief at the newspaper of the island's only high school. In 2022, Lannigan interned on CBS-affiliate 10 Tampa Bay’s digital desk, where she covered topics like Florida's changing abortion laws and mastered the art of creating digital news content. During her senior year at the University of Florida, Lannigan worked as a Pulitzer fellow, covering Florida’s phosphate industry and producing an accountability feature on Florida’s reclaimed mining lands. Lannigan wrote investigative and political content on Florida’s 2023 legislative session for WUFT's Fresh Take Florida. Her byline has appeared in the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, and more. Her love for journalism stems from her time at The Independent Florida Alligator, the University of Florida's independent, student-run paper. Over two years, she reported on race, equity, health and the environment and served as the metro desk editor. She graduated in 2023 with a journalism bachelor's degree from the university.

Stephen Marcantel

Stephen Marcantel works at the Acadiana Advocate in Lafayette, Louisiana, covering the news coverage gaps facing rural Acadiana, the surrounding parishes of Lafayette. He graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2022 with a bachelor's in mass communications. Since then, he has worked as a freelancer at the Acadiana Advocate covering various business and life stories. He also freelanced for the nonprofit online newspaper The Current in Lafayette. Marcantel has covered stories of mothers losing their children to fentanyl and fighting for change, food insecurity facing the poorest in our community, the lack of shelter space for those experiencing homelessness in Lafayette, and Lafayette's struggle to clean up the Vermilion River.

Claudia Rivera Cotto

Claudia M. Rivera Cotto is a bilingual reporter who covers political, government and immigration issues in North Carolina for Enlace Latino NC. Before joining Report for America, she reported on social issues for the Columbia Missourian. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and English from the University of Puerto Rico, where she served as News Co-Director of Pulso Estudiantil. Rivera Cotto also has a master’s degree in Investigative and Data Journalism from the University of Missouri. Her journalism focuses on corporate and government accountability reporting.

Macon Atkinson

Macon Atkinson covers political and personal trends, threads and issues from a rural voter perspective during the presidential election for The Post and Courier. Prior to joining that newsroom, she worked at daily newspapers in the Carolinas and Texas, covering public safety, city politics and downtown development. She won a 2023 Sidney Hillman Foundation award for her work on "The Cost of Unity," a project revealing the gentrifying forces behind Greenville, South Carolina's success. Originally from Charlotte, she graduated from Appalachian State University in 2019. When she's not working, you can find her out on a run or cooking in her kitchen.