2025-2026

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.

Pablo Unzueta

Pablo Unzueta is a first generation Chilean-American photojournalist documenting health equity, the environment, culture and displacement amongst the Latino population in San Francisco for El Tecolote. Coming from a background of photographers and artists in his family, Unzueta picked up his first camera at the age of 17 and taught himself photography by documenting life around the Los Angeles region, including moments in his own journey. His formal career started when he joined CalMatters as a photojournalism intern, producing features, portraiture and breaking news. Unzueta went on to become a full-time freelance photojournalist and a grantee of the Magnum Foundation. You can find Unzueta’s work in The Guardian, CalMatters and High Country News. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Cal State Long Beach.

Daniel Walters

Daniel Walters covers the far right, the radical left and the beleaguered democratic institutions caught in the middle for InvestigateWest, an investigative nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest. He previously spent 15 years as a reporter for the Inlander, the alt-weekly in Spokane, Washington, where he’s covered a slew of different beats, including city hall, politics, religion, business, and education. In that role, he won first-place national alt-weekly awards for extremism reporting with his 2020 cover story about the rise of vigilantism; for immigration reporting with his harrowing account of an Afghan's failed attempt to escape his country after it fell to the Taliban; for education reporting with his exposé of Idaho's failure to send its high school graduates to college; and for food writing for his deeply reported explanation of exactly why amateur chefs shouldn’t set their laptop on a hot stove burner. Before that, he was a student at Whitworth University, where, as opinions editor for his college paper, he banned his writers from using semicolons.

Shannon Chaffers

Shannon Chaffers covers the epidemic of gun violence in New York's Black, immigrant, and under-resourced communities for The New York Amsterdam News’ Blacklight investigative unit. Prior to joining the Amsterdam News, Chaffers spent a year in Berlin, Germany as a Fulbright Young Professional Journalist. She reported on the history and legacy of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium while also interning at The Local Germany. Chaffers’ journalism career began in her hometown of Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she wrote for her high school newspaper, The Bradford. She then attended Princeton University, graduating in 2022. She majored in Sociology and minored in Journalism, African-American Studies, and German and also served as the Head Opinion Editor of The Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper. Away from journalism, Chaffers loves playing soccer and cheering on her favorite team, Arsenal FC.

Daniel Zawodny

Daniel Zawodny covers transportation in Baltimore and its surrounding communities for The Baltimore Banner. Before joining The Banner, Daniel covered immigration and immigrant issues at the local, national and international levels as an independent journalist while working in the field of immigration law. He is fluent in Spanish and bachata and would really like to pet your dog.

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.

Hiram Alejandro Durán

Hiram Alejandro Durán covers Latino and Mayan communities as a photojournalist for El Tímpano. He's from the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border region. Although he is fourth-generation Mexican-American, Durán is the first person in his family to be raised and educated in the U.S. Before moving to New York City in 2018, he worked as a shoe salesman while studying Media Advertising and Marketing at the University of Texas at El Paso. He joined the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism with the intention of becoming a print reporter. But after auditing an intro to photojournalism course, he discovered the power of photography as a storytelling tool. His photography has won awards, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, the Marshall Project, the Pulitzer Center, Imprint News, Riverdale Press, The City, Bklyner and the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Tannistha Sinha

Tannistha Sinha covers politics in Houston for the Houston Defender Network. She graduated with a master's of science in journalism from the University of Southern California last year, and was the recipient of the Annenberg Graduate fellowship. While pursuing stories for the curriculum, she also served as a reporter and USC editor at the student-led newsroom Annenberg Media, and interned at the inequality desk of BuzzFeed News, where she focused on socioeconomic stories. After graduating, she joined HousingWire Media as a general assignment reporter, where she covered housing and real estate trends across the country, and concentrated on affordable housing and propTech. She grew up in Kolkata, India, and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in English literature from Jadavpur University. Being an avid debater, she represented her university in several public speaking competitions across India. Her works have also been published by notable Indian newsrooms like The Hindu, The Telegraph, CNN News18, NDTV and The Wire.

Isabela Weiss

Isabela Weiss covers rural government for WVIA, the NPR affiliate in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Before moving to the Keystone State, Isabela worked as a local politics reporter for NPR’s WUGA News in Athens, Georgia. At WUGA, Weiss mostly covered housing insecurity, county finances and community issues. As the daughter of Israeli and Nicaraguan immigrants, Weiss studied political science at the University of Georgia to better understand identity relationships and political psychology. Her love of literature and her high school newspaper, G-Tracks, led her to get a second bachelor’s degree in English. She adds a special thanks to Martin Matheny (WUGA), Dr. Audrey Haynes (UGA), and Dr. Krista Bowen (G-Tracks) for inspiring her to chase her dreams.

Torsheta Jackson

Torsheta Jackson is the Education Equity Solutions reporter for the Mississippi Free Press in Jackson, Mississippi. Prior to joining the newsroom full time, Jackson spent 19 years as an educator and coach and 12 years as a freelance journalist. She has bylines in YES! magazine, Mississippi Free Press, Mississippi Scoreboard, Jackson Advocate, Jackson Free Press, Eater and Bash Brothers Media. Her work as part of the newsroom's Black Women and COVID project covered education history, equity and access in Noxubee County and garnered national recognition. Jackson earned a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from The University of Southern Mississippi, graduating top of her Broadcast Journalism cohort. She also holds master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction from the University of Mississippi and in human lactation from Union Institute and University. She lives in Richland, Mississippi with her husband Victor and the two youngest of their four children. She enjoys traveling, making memories with her family, reading and coaching youth sports.