2025-2026

Adam Smith-Perez

Prior to joining Investigative Post, Smith-Perez produced podcasts, fact-checked and reported for The Nation. Smith-Perez has also worked extensively as a freelance fact-checker for several outlets, including Mother Jones, Ambrook Research, Noema Magazine, and HarperCollins. He started his journalism career reporting on COVID's impact on immigrant communities in his hometown of Boston, where he worked for an immigrant and refugee advocacy non-profit writing newsletters. As a student at Columbia Journalism School, Smith-Perez reported more extensively on the housing and overdose crisis. Following his graduation, he hosted and produced a segment about Hepatitis C for VICE News, and was a fellow at the Columbia Age Boom Academy, where he honed his reporting and research skills on the aging, housing and health beats. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Oona Wood Milliken

Before joining The Nevada Independent, Oona Milliken was a student journalist at Columbia Journalism School, where she covered politics, housing and business. Prior to that, she worked as a metro reporter and freelancer in New York City. She holds an undergraduate degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she first fell in love with journalism.

Annie Bresee

Before becoming a Report For America Corp Member, Bresee was the editor of two community newspapers in Georgia and Alabama. While there, she covered issues like the local school boards' efforts to consolidate under a federal desegregation order, citizens protesting a proposed quarry, and abuse in a small town church. Bresee became interested in journalism late in college when she began writing for the university’s newspaper and would later write a long-form feature for her undergraduate thesis. She received her undergraduate degree from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas.

Jonathan Aguilar

Before joining Milwaukee Neighborhood News, Jonathan Aguilar was a photojournalist for The Blade in Toledo, OH. As a bilingual multimedia journalist, he was first inspired by a trip to Mexico in 2017 and he has been telling stories with his camera ever since. He attended DePaul University for his bachelor’s degree in journalism and attended the Medill School of Journalism for a master’s degree in journalism. Aguilar’s passion for visibility through journalism led him to help establish the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at DePaul University and he helped establish the first Spanish-speaking newsroom at DePaul University.

Megan Jackson

Prior to joining Marietta Daily Journal as a city government reporter in suburban Atlanta, Megan Jackson worked as an intern for the Macon Telegraph and Georgia Public Broadcasting. Jackson also acted as editor-in-chief for her school paper, The Mercer Cluster. During her time as a journalism student at Mercer University, Jackson worked to tell stories researching blight and illegal dumping in her community, focused on school and educational issues, and researched pedestrian safety issues throughout Macon-Bibb County.

Amaya Edwards

Prior to joining Santa Cruz Local, visual journalist Amaya Edwards worked as the visuals intern for the San Francisco Chronicle and freelanced for different news organizations throughout the Bay Area, including the Oaklandside and San Francisco Chronicle. Edwards earned a bachelor's degree in photojournalism with a minor in race and resistance studies at San Francisco State University in 2022. She was a recipient of the Fran Ortiz grant during her time at SFSU, allowing her to work on her documentary photo essay about Black women doulas and their commitment to Black maternal health justice in and around Oakland.

Sean Scott

Sean Scott is the incoming religion, politics and society reporter for The Maine Monitor. Before joining The Monitor staff, Scott served as the founding editor for the Oxford Free Press, a nonprofit print and digital newsroom which launched in Ohio in June 2024. He began his journalism career at The Miami Student, Miami University's student newspaper, while studying journalism and urban and regional planning. He wrote about everything from local elections to faculty unionization and served as editor-in-chief in his senior year. His work for The Student and the Free Press has earned local, statewide and regional awards, as well as a national award for campus reporting. While in college, Scott also held internships with The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Journal-News in Hamilton, Ohio. Scott spends much of his free time with his two cats, Ghost and Nymeria.

Arielle Robinson

Prior to joining the Arkansas Times, Robinson covered general assignment stories for Verite News in New Orleans as a newsroom fellow. She has also freelanced in Georgia for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and covered city council, as well as issues related to race, at the Cobb County Courier. She also has completed a CNN internship and a ProPublica mentorship program. Robinson got her start in journalism at her university newspaper, The Sentinel, where she served as a reporter and editor. While there, she was president of her school’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs and a minor in gender and women’s studies from Kennesaw State University. Robinson enjoys reading, spending time in nature and journaling in her free time.

Justin Hamel

Before joining the Waco Bridge, Justin Hamel spent the previous six years living in El Paso, Texas, as a freelance photojournalist covering migration along the U.S.-Mexico border and the energy industry in the West Texas Permian Basin. As an avid outdoors enthusiast, his photos show the increasing militarization of the populated borderlands as well as the remote and wild regions with minimal human impact. His photos always seek to humanize the effects of industry and government policy. Hamel’s introduction to the journalism industry began in the sixth grade in Galion, Ohio, and later in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, where he started delivering papers from his bike. He later went on to earn a degree in Documentary Photography from the New England School of Photography in Boston, Massachusetts.

Molly Bohannon

Prior to joining the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, Bohannon worked as a breaking news reporter for Forbes and covered local government and education for the Fort Collins Coloradoan. She earned a master's degree in investigative reporting from Arizona State University, where she worked on an investigation into COVID-19's impact on America’s homeless population that was supported by the Pulitzer Center. That project won multiple awards, including first place in student reporting from the Association of Health Care Journalists Awards and best news story in the EPPY Awards. She is also a graduate of Creighton University, where she studied journalism and was editor-in-chief of the school’s student newspaper, the Creightonian.