California

Joshua Yeager

Joshua Yeager covers environmental and health issues in Bakersfield and Kern County, California. He previously worked for the Visalia Times Delta, where his reporting exposed inequalities in Tulare County towns suffering contaminated and insufficient drinking water. He won a first-place California News Papers Association award for his coverage of Sierra Nevada’s historic 2020 wildfire season. An avid Sierra hiker, he has recently investigated forest management policy oversights that have resulted in the death of thousands of giant sequoia trees.

Casey Murray

Casey Murray is a data reporter covering health and criminal justice at The Sacramento Observer, which serves the Black community in Sacramento, California and beyond. Previously, she covered breaking news and helped to develop podcasts at KSHB, an NBC affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri. As a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Murray covered health and did newscasts for KBIA, an NPR affiliate, reported for the Missouri Broadcasters Association, and hosted an entrepreneurship podcast for Missouri Business Alert. She has interned at Politico Europe, where she managed social media platforms and assisted with data projects.

Victoria Franco

Victoria Franco is a disabled bilingual reporter based in Stockton, California, covering the news around San Joaquin County for Bay City News Foundation and its Local News Matters, a nonprofit news site. She is a research fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, which was co-founded by Stanford University and the University of Southern California. A San Jose State University alumna, Franco served as the managing editor of her student paper, the Spartan Daily. She helped lead her staff to the California College Media Association Awards, earning first place in general excellence. In her spare time, Franco enjoys traveling to Europe with her mother.

Crystal Niebla

Crystal Niebla is an investigative reporter focused on infrastructure and government accountability for inewsource, a nonprofit newsroom in San Diego. A second-year Report for America corps member, Niebla was a multimedia journalist at the Long Beach Post in Long Beach, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in sociology from The California State University, Long Beach, where she was the news editor of the student paper. Niebla grew up in South Los Angeles and realized early on that despite growing up in poverty, she could use fearless journalism to influence positive change in society.

Ximena Natera

Ximena Natera is a photojournalist at Berkeleyside, a nonprofit digital news site that covers Berkeley and the East Bay in California. Originally from Mexico City, Natera is a founding member of Pie de Pagina, an award-winning investigative newsroom in Mexico that specializes in reporting on migration, human rights and justice. She studied documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York City, and her work largely focuses on complex issues told through individual stories of people who are often pushed into extraordinary circumstances. Photography has taken her to places and spaces that would have been unimaginable under any other circumstances—it has been the privilege of her life. Natera is a member of Periodistas de a Pie, Women Photograph, Native Agency and the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Harika Maddala

Harika Maddala is a photojournalist based in Stockton, California, covering the news around San Joaquin County for the Bay City News Foundation and its nonprofit news site Local News Matters. Maddala previously documented the homelessness crisis as a research fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, which was co-founded by Stanford University and the University of Southern California. Born and raised in India, Maddala is fluent in Telugu, Hindi and Kannada, and moved to the U.S. at age 19. As a staff photographer and photo editor for San Francisco State’s newspaper, the Golden Gate Xpress, Maddala covered police violence, prison transfers and environmental racism, and placed in the top 10 in the Hearst Journalism Awards 2021. Maddala’s work has been displayed at galleries.

Yujie Zhou

Yujie Zhou covers Bay Area tech companies and gig workers for Mission Local, an investigative news outlet based in San Francisco. Before falling in love with the city, she covered New York City’s Chinese community and studied politics in the midst of Hong Kong’s street clashes. Zhou holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor’s degree in public policy and politics from City University of Hong Kong. She’s proud to be a bilingual journalist.

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.

Iris Kwok

Iris Kwok reports on climate and transportation for Berkeleyside, a nonprofit digital news site that covers Berkeley and the East Bay in California. As a freelance journalist, she has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Sfgate, a news site, and KQED public media, covering stories about race and diversity, music, and their intersection. Kwok was a 2021 Asian American Journalists Association Voices fellow, where she reported on the exodus of journalists of color from the news industry. A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Kwok studied political science, music and journalism. Outside of journalism, she is a cellist with an affinity for cats and foggy weather.

Isaiah Murtaugh

Isaiah Murtaugh is an education reporter at the Ventura County Star, which is part of the USA Today Network and based in Camarillo, California. As a freelance podcast producer, he created a historical documentary series for Reckon Radio and wrote and produced episodes for “The Whistleblower,” a series from The GroundTruth Project and Boston’s WGBH public radio. Murtaugh has reported audio and print stories on religion and politics, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, USA Today and Religion News Service. He calls Los Angeles home, and holds a master’s degree in specialized journalism from the University of Southern California. A train lover, shoe skeptic and songwriter, Murtaugh has performed Americana music under a stage name.