2024-2025

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.

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.

Bella Davis

Bella Davis covers Indigenous affairs for New Mexico In Depth, a nonprofit, digital news outlet. She’s based in Albuquerque. Most recently, Davis reported on cannabis, housing, local government and more for the Santa Fe Reporter. She got her start in journalism at her college newspaper, which she joined at the beginning of the pandemic, and primarily covered protests spurred by the police murder of George Floyd. A graduate of the University of New Mexico with a degree in journalism, Davis was born in Eureka, California, grew up in central New Mexico, and is a Yurok tribal member.

Graycen Wheeler

Graycen Wheeler reports on water issues for KOSU public radio, based in Stillwater, Oklahoma. A scientist-turned-journalist, she has written about science and technology for Symmetry, Science, Mongabay, among others, and covered local news, particularly housing and environmental issues, for the Monterey Herald, The Mercury News and Santa Cruz Local. Wheeler grew up in Norman, Oklahoma and started reporting while she was a graduate researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, she wrote and edited for Science Buffs, a student-run STEM blog, and hosted a podcast, “Buffs Talk Science.” After earning a doctorate in biochemistry, Wheeler completed a master’s in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In her free time, Wheeler loves solving crossword puzzles and playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Luis Joel Mendez Gonzalez

Luis Joel Méndez González covers government preparedness around climate change for the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Born and raised in Moca, Puerto Rico, he was a ProPublica Emerging Reporter in 2019, and a Google News Initiative Fellow in 2020. Méndez González, an LGBTQIA+ first-generation college graduate, has interned with The Miami Herald I-Team, El Nuevo Día Investigative and Data Unit, and Metro Puerto Rico. As a freelancer he has reported for international media outlets. Méndez González holds a master's degree in information design and data visualization from Northeastern University. In his free time, he enjoys reading and writing, and he also loves beauty pageants and coffee.

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.

Bennet Goldstein

Bennet Goldstein reports on water and agriculture as Wisconsin Watch’s Report for America representative on the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk—a collaborative reporting network across the Basin. Before this, Goldstein was on the breaking news team at the Omaha World Herald in Nebraska. He has spent most of his career at daily papers in Iowa, including the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. Goldstein’s work has garnered awards, including the Associated Press Media Editors award for an explanatory feature about a police shooting in rural Wisconsin, and an Iowa Newspaper Association award for a series that detailed the impacts of the loss of social safety net programs on Dubuque’s Marshallese community. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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.

Madeline Heim

Madeline Heim reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she covers Wisconsin’s environmental challenges as part of the Mississippi River Basin Project, a collaborative reporting network across the Basin. Previously, she was a health and science reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent and the USA Today network in Wisconsin—her coverage of the pandemic earned top honors from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Born and raised in the Badger State, she holds degrees in journalism and creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was editor-in-chief of the The Daily Cardinal. Heim has interned at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and reported for the Winona Daily News in Winona, Minnesota, where she quickly fell in love with the Mississippi River region.

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.