2024-2025

Julie Freijat

Prior to joining Report for America, Freijat served as a data reporter for Kansas City PBS through the Dow Jones News Fund, where she produced data-driven articles about local and state issues. She also held two internships at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she gained valuable experience in science communication working across platforms. Freijat was also heavily involved in her campus newspaper at Kansas State University, where she served in multiple leadership roles and won awards for her design and writing at the state and national levels. While at Mizzou, Freijat worked as a research assistant for Investigative Reporters and Editors and served as a student staffer at the Reynold’s Journalism Institute Innovation Lab. Freijat received her master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2024, and graduated from Kansas State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in biology in 2022.

Yiming Fu

Yiming Fu covers the impact of the Maui wildfires on Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and Filipinos, as well as how these communities are navigating the recovery process. Prior to joining AsAmNews, Fu wrote slice-of-life profiles and features in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, for The Daily Maverick. Fu studied journalism at Northwestern University, where he covered Asian American communities in Evanston, Illinois for The Daily Northwestern and served as a beat reporter, city editor and print managing editor. He has also written on tribal sovereignty, Indigenous healthcare and incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge in national environmental response as a congressional correspondent for The Medill News Service. Fu got his start in journalism at his high school newspaper, where he published a bombastic spread reviewing every burrito in his hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts.

Brenda Hernandez

Brenda Hernandez-Rodriguez is a first generation Mexican-American Latina multimedia journalist. Her spark for journalism and higher education started with her high school newspaper. She holds a bachelor's degree in writing & rhetoric with a journalism concentration. As a college student at St.Edward’s University she completed five internship experiences and was a part of Hilltop Views, the university newspaper. Her written and spoken Spanish fluency has allowed her to curate community-focused articles about the Latino community in her hometown. Brenda is a multimedia journalist who always seeks to grow and expand her video and photographic skill set. Brenda has an unwavering passion and dedication for journalism and hopes to make her career something her parents will be proud of.

Kate Payne

Kate Payne covers government and politics for The Associated Press with a focus on the Florida Legislature and education. Before joining Report for America, Payne covered education for WLRN Public Media in South Florida, where she profiled students and pressed officials in some of the country’s largest school districts. Payne has spent her career in public media newsrooms in Florida and Iowa, where her reporting has spanned interviewing middle schoolers on the lunch line to presidential candidates on the campaign trail. In 2020, she and NPR’s Miles Parks broke the story that Iowa Democrats planned to use an untested and potentially vulnerable app to transmit their Caucus results. Payne has won awards for her political reporting, feature writing and sound editing, and has reported from the field in the aftermath of multiple natural disasters. Like a good Floridian, Payne has a love for the weird and the wild and makes an excellent Key lime pie.

Phillip Powell

Prior to joining the Arkansas Times, Phillip Powell worked as a reporter on Capitol Hill as part of his graduate studies at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. His reporting focused on politics and foreign affairs. At Northwestern Medill, Phillip is taking part in large investigative projects with ProPublica and the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, along with building multimedia skills in podcasting, photography, and video journalism. He holds his bachelors degree in political science from Hendrix College, where he was a staff writer for The Profile and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Aonian Literary Magazine. He graduates from Northwestern in June with a Master of Science in Journalism.

Charlotte Matherly

Charlotte Matherly covers the New Hampshire statehouse for The Concord Monitor & Monadnock Ledger Transcript. Matherly previously reported on government and education in Virginia as a freelancer. She has interned at The Chronicle of Higher Education and at a business journal in Richmond, Virginia for the Dow Jones News Fund. Matherly pursued journalism on a whim when she joined her campus newspaper, The Breeze, at James Madison University. Immediately hooked, she became an award-winning features editor, then editor-in-chief. She holds a bachelor’s degree in media arts and design from JMU. When not poring over public records or holed up at a government meeting (which is rare), Matherly loves to roller skate, explore new cities and frequent local coffee shops.

Kathryn DePauw

Kathryn DePauw covers Indigenous and tribal communities in Northern Michigan for the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Before this, she editor-in-chief for the White Pine Press, Northwestern Michigan College’s newspaper. There, she earned awards for her photojournalism and reporting on local stories, COVID-19, and the 2020 election. In 2022, the Michigan College Press Association named her the Janet Nellis Mendler Student Journalist of the Year. DePauw earned a degree in freshwater studies and has worked with many local nonprofits as a water quality monitor, geographic information systems specialist, and digital content creator. She was awarded the 2021 Student Environmentalist of the Year award from the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council for establishing a chloride monitoring program.

Charlotte Kramon

Charlotte Kramon covers The Georgia Legislature, with a focus on democracy and voting rights and access, for The Associated Press. During internships at the Los Angeles Times and Charlotte Observer, respectively, Kramon covered housing and homelessness and revealed dire conditions in a long-term stay hotel. Kramon also investigated student overdose deaths as a freelance journalist for The Assembly and covered criminal justice, elections, and education for INDY Reporter and The 9th Street Journal in Durham. She graduated from Duke University with a major in public policy and minor in journalism.

Lucas Dufalla

Before coming to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dufalla interned at PublicSource, an investigative nonprofit newsroom in his hometown of Pittsburgh. There, he covered housing and economic development in the city and its surrounding boroughs. A summer before, he interned at the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper, where he covered small business in southern Maine. He attended Bowdoin College and wrote for the school’s student-run weekly newspaper, The Bowdoin Orient.

Chloe Courtney Bohl

Chloe Courtney Bohl covers Raleigh and Wake County government for INDY Reporter in North Carolina. Before she joined Report for America, Bohl worked as a general assignment co-op for Boston.com, writing about politics and civic life in and around Boston. She earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations at Tufts University, where she served as the editor-in-chief of The Tufts Daily.